"Past eleven o'clock, dear," said Hermione.
"Still so early?" sighed Ravenslee.
They were sitting alone in the fire glow, so near that by moving his hand he could touch her where she sat curled up in the great armchair; but he did not reach out his hand because they were alone and in the fire glow, and Hermione had never seemed quite so alluring.
"How cosy a fire is—and how unnecessary!" she sighed contentedly.
"I'm English enough to love a fire, especially when it is unnecessary," he answered.
"English, dear?"
"My mother was English; that's why I was educated in England."
"Your mother! How she must have loved you!"
"I suppose she did; but, you see, she died when I was a baby."
"Poor lonely mite!" Here her hand came out impulsively to caress his coat sleeve and to be prisoned there by two other hands, to be lifted and pressed to burning lips, whereat she grew all rosy in the fire glow.