"You see," Hugh added nervously, "you love Mary Broughton, and she loves you, and you have the approval and blessing of both fathers. Now I—" Here he stammered, and then became silent.
"What is it, Hugh—do you wish me to understand that you love Mary yourself?"
John Devereux spoke seriously, almost jealously, for an old suspicion was beginning to awaken once more within him.
But Hugh laughed in a way to forever remove any such feeling from his friend's mind.
"I—I love Mary!" he exclaimed. "I never dreamed of such a thing, Jack, although I admit that she is very beautiful, and possesses everything to call forth any man's best and deepest love. But, my dear Jack, if you were not blinded, you might see that the world holds other girls than Mary." And he looked wistfully at his friend, as if wishing him to know something he hesitated to put into words.
"Do you mean that you are in love with some one, Hugh?" asked Jack, laying his hand on the other's broad shoulder.
Hugh's blue eyes lowered as bashfully as those of a girl, and Jack, now smiling at him, said, "Who is it—Polly Chine, over at the Fountain Inn?"
"Polly Chine!" Hugh answered disgustedly. "A great strapping red-cheeked clatter-tongue, who can do naught but laugh?"
"Well, if 't is not Polly, then I am all at sea, for I never knew you to do more than speak to another girl, unless—" And he paused, as something in Hugh's pleading eyes caught his attention and awoke his senses with a rush.
"Oh, Hugh—it surely is not—" But Knollys interrupted him.