Lucy looked into the disappointed, angry, chagrined face of Egerton, and in her surprise and vexation piled question upon question without giving him time to answer.
"No, the girl's a fool!" he muttered angrily, and turning hastily from her, paced rapidly to and fro for a moment; then suddenly recollecting himself, "I beg pardon, Miss Carrington," he said, coming back to the sofa on which she sat regarding him with a perturbed, displeased countenance, "I—I forgot myself; but you will perhaps, know how to excuse an almost distracted lover."
"Really, sir," returned Lucy coolly, "your words just now did not sound very lover-like; and would rather lead one to suspect that possibly Mr. Dinsmore may be in the right."
He flushed hotly. "What can you mean, Miss Carrington?"
"That your love is for her fortune rather than for herself."
"Indeed you wrong me. I adore Miss Dinsmore, and would consider myself the happiest of mortals could I but secure her hand, even though she came to me penniless. But she has imbibed the most absurd, ridiculous ideas of filial duty and refuses to give me the smallest encouragement unless I can gain her father's consent and approval; which, seeing he has conceived a violent dislike to me, is a hopeless thing. Now can you not realize that the more ardent my love for her, the more frantically impatient I would feel under such treatment?"
"Perhaps so; men are so different from women; but nothing could ever make me apply such an epithet to the man I loved."
"Distracted with disappointed hopes, I was hardly a sane man at the moment, Miss Carrington," he said deprecatingly.
"The coveted interview has proved entirely unsatisfactory then?" she said in a tone of inquiry.
"Yes; and yet I am most thankful to have had sight and speech of her once more; truly grateful to you for bringing it about so cleverly. But—oh, Miss Carrington, could you be persuaded to assist me still further, you would lay me under lasting obligations!"