'I thank you, from my heart,' replied Cecil, and she withdrew her hand, while he was longing to take up the links of the old story, gathering even courage from the omen that Snarley, in a new blue and silver collar, with his mistress's monogram and a bell, barked, whimpered, and frisked about him with delight.
Snarley had an undoubted propensity for worrying rats in the stable court, under the auspices of Hew Montgomerie and Pate Pastern, the head-groom; also proclivities for the kitchen and low life generally: but here he was in the drawing-room to welcome the visitor.
'You knew I would call?' said Falconer, after a pause.
'I—hoped you would,' said Mary, timidly.
'You did!' he exclaimed in a low voice, as he started to her side. 'Oh, my darling!'
'Yes—of course,' replied Mary faintly, and blushing deeply now, as he took both her hands in his and gazed into her eyes with passionate tenderness; and somehow it came speedily to pass that as they stood so near, they were posed like the Black Brunswicker and his love, or the Huguenot and his guardian angel, in the well-known pictures; but if the pose was delicious, the speeches that accompanied it were a little fatuous and incoherent.
After a time, Falconer, still holding her in his embrace and gazing tenderly into her upturned eyes, made the somewhat prosaic request:
'You will keep some round dances for me at the ball, of course, darling?'
'Gladly would I do so, dearest Cecil—but——'
'But what, Mary love?'