'There is nothing funny about it,' he replied, though, like her, he could little foresee the trouble that unlucky photograph was to cost in the future. 'And, to say the least of it, Olive treats me with almost hostility at times.'
'She does not conceal from me a resentment at her lack of free will.'
'As for Uncle Raymond's arrangements, I would to goodness that he had left all he had to his old housekeeper and her infernal screeching cockatoo with the yellow tuft.'
'Certainly Olive does not seem to be the kind of girl to be disposed of against her wish, Allan; you may read that in the firm tread of her little feet, in the carriage of her head, and the perfect possession of her manner.'
'But surely she may be won—though she will not understand me.'
'I hope she will ere long; but is there not a writer who says, Allan, that while the world lasts the difficulty of women understanding and making allowance for the feelings of men in what pertains to love, "will be probably one of the great sources of darkness and confusion in the social arrangement of things."'
'What a dear little casuist it is,' said he, as she raised her petite figure on tip-toe to kiss his well-tanned cheek; 'but,' he added, 'I am in a state of great uncertainty.'
'Uncertainty can always be ended; but then perhaps how bitterly—how very bitterly,' replied Eveline, who was not without some harrowing thoughts of her own; and something in her tone caused Allan to regard her soft hazel eyes, and sweet, shy face, with tenderness and inquiry.
'Of what are you thinking, or of—whom?' he whispered, as his arm went caressing round her, and he stroked her bright, sheeny hair.
'I may trust you, Allan?' she said, in a broken voice.