“Good-bye, Lord Warburton.” Her voice perceptibly trembled.
“And I want to tell you how much I wish you may be very happy.”
“Thank you, Lord Warburton,” Pansy answered.
He lingered a moment and gave a glance at Isabel. “You ought to be very happy—you’ve got a guardian angel.”
“I’m sure I shall be happy,” said Pansy in the tone of a person whose certainties were always cheerful.
“Such a conviction as that will take you a great way. But if it should ever fail you, remember—remember—” And her interlocutor stammered a little. “Think of me sometimes, you know!” he said with a vague laugh. Then he shook hands with Isabel in silence, and presently he was gone.
When he had left the room she expected an effusion of tears from her stepdaughter; but Pansy in fact treated her to something very different.
“I think you are my guardian angel!” she exclaimed very sweetly.
Isabel shook her head. “I’m not an angel of any kind. I’m at the most your good friend.”
“You’re a very good friend then—to have asked papa to be gentle with me.”