As the men came in from the dining-room Miss Anstice's carriage was announced, and she rose to bid her hostess good-night.
"Must you run away so early, my dear?"
"Thank you, yes; I promised Papa to come home early. He likes to see me before he goes to bed, and to hear an account of my evening."
"You will be at home at five to-morrow, and I may bring Captain Blathwayt?"
"Any friend of yours, of course," murmured Winifred, in a tone which could hardly have proved encouraging to the vanity or incipient sentiment of the guardsman.
"If you will permit me," said Flint to Graham as Winifred came down the stairs, "I will put Miss Anstice into her carriage, and then come back for that last cigar."
Never in his life had Flint so raved against his own lack of readiness as now, when he felt the passing moments slipping by, and could find no words to set himself right in the eyes of the woman he loved,—the woman whose little gloved hand rested on his arm. Judge then of his feeling when, smiling up into his eyes with perfect friendliness, Winifred said under her breath, "Why do we go there—you and I? They really aren't our kind at all."
The remark carried with it full assurance that no words uttered by Hartington Graham had power to shake for an instant her faith in the man whom she had called her friend; but beyond that her confident use of the word our, as if their interests and associations were the same, thrilled him with a sort of intoxication.
"Oh, thank you!" was all that he could find to say to express his complicated state of mind.