“Fleecy is glad to see me,” he said in a tone of tender reproach.
“And so am I! Oh, Bertie!” she gasped, catching her breath with a sort of sob.
“Are you?” he said, and, standing where he was, he held out his arms. In a second she had flown to them, and the great man had lifted her off her feet and caught her to his breast and held her there. She clung with both arms around his neck, and laid her face in the hollow of his throat. For a few seconds neither spoke, and then he put her down, still holding one of her hands, and led her so across the room.
“So you are glad to see me, Mim!” he said, standing on the hearth-rug, and taking her little face between his large, beautiful hands.
“I worship you,” she said, looking up at him, through two big tears.
“So you’re just as big a goose as ever!” he said, almost in a whisper, still holding her so and looking down at her. “I suppose I ought to be sorry, but do you think I am? Well, I’m not. I’m glad!” Impossible to describe the winning charm of this man’s manner, or the tender beauty of his face as he said this. “But stand off and let me look at you,” he went on, loosing her face to take her two hands and hold her at arm’s length by them. “Who said you were losing your beauty? It’s not so. You’re absolutely bewitching. I doubt—now I’m going to tell you something that will make you happy for a year—I seriously doubt, upon my word of honor, whether any one else in the world is so pretty.”
She smiled until her cheeks dimpled, but the next moment the tears had sprung to her eyes.
“What does it matter,” she said, “if you don’t care?”
“Don’t I, though? I can tell you I do care tremendously. Do you suppose, after all that’s been between you and me, that I shall lose interest in you and never care what happens to you in the future?”
“But if we never see each other——”