"I should like to feel settled and secure."
"My dear Lallie, you'll never feel settled, you're not that sort; and as to security, pray in what way do you feel insecure at present?"
Lallie removed her elbow from Tony's knee, she leant back against him again so that he could not see her face, and said, very low:
"I feel insecure because in the course of the next few weeks I'll have to make up my mind definitely one way or other, and whichever way it is, it seems to me I shall regret it."
Again the whole of Tony's mentality fairly cried the name of Ballinger aloud, and although the stillness in the quiet room was so great that you might have heard a pin drop it seemed that his thought must have reached Lallie, for she broke the silence by saying in quite a different tone:
"I wish you had met Dad's friend, Mr. Ballinger, Tony; I'd like to know what you think of him."
"That can be easily managed; we'll ask him to dinner when you come back."
"He is going to the Chesters, you know."
"I didn't know, but I'm glad to hear it for your sake, since you like him."
"Then you don't think I'd be better in a home of my own--married, I mean," said Lallie with startling bluntness.