"Oh! yes, you behaved shockingly!" rejoined Cornelia, laughing with him. "Mind! I don't care how devoted you are to Sophie—the more the better; but, when you do notice me, I want you to do it kindly—won't you?"
"I'll be sure to, now that I know you care any thing about it."
"And what made you think I didn't care about it, if you please, sir?"
"Why," stammered he, quite at a loss what to say, and so coming out with the truth, "I thought you were offended at my being engaged to Sophie!"
"But what should there be in that to offend me?" demanded Cornelia, with the mouth and eyes of Innocence.
"I don't know:—well—I knew you first!" he blurted forth, beginning to wish he had been satisfied to hold his tongue.
Cornelia took her breath once or twice, and then bit it off on her under lip, as if about to say something, and afterward hesitating about it.
"I don't quite understand you," she managed to get out at last; "do you—forgive me if I'm wrong—but perhaps you're thinking of that time—when—just before I went away?"
Saying this, she drooped her eyes in a confusion, which, because more than half of it was genuine, made her look very fascinating. Nothing is more seductive than a little truth. As Bressant looked at her, and thought of what lie had done at that last interview, soft thrills crept sweetly through his blood, and he felt a most extraordinary tenderness for her.
"I've often thought of it," answered he, in a tone which did not belie his words.