How that long morning dragged on, Charley never knew; certainly his medical studies did not progress much. Poor and in debt, in love and deserted, those were the changes on which his thoughts rang. A sulky-faced clock, striking one, made him start. It was time to go home to dinner, and he arose and went out. As he opened the shop-door, he stopped short. Tripping gayly along the foggy and sloppy streets came Cherrie herself, her dress pinned artistically up, to display a brilliant Balmoral skirt, of all the colors of a dying dolphin; her high-heeled boots clinking briskly over the pavement. Charley's foolish heart gave a great bound, and he stepped impulsively forward, with her name on his lips.
"Cherrie?"
Cherrie had not seen him until he spoke, and she recoiled with a scream.
"Sir! Charley Marsh! how you scare me! I wish you wouldn't shout out so sudden and frighten me out of my wits!"
"You may spare your hysterics, Cherrie," said Charley, rather coldly; "you could stand more than that if Captain Cavendish was in question."
Cherrie laughed, and tripped along beside him with dancing eyes. She liked Charley, though in a far less degree than the dashing and elegant young officer, and was in a particularly good-natured state of mind that morning. There was more than her liking for Charley to induce her to keep good friends with him—the warning of the captain and her own prudence. Cherrie, faithless herself, had no very profound trust in her fellow-creatures. Until she was actually the captain's wife, she was not sure of him; there is many a slip, she knew; and if he failed her, Charley was the next best in Speckport. Therefore, at his insinuation, she only tossed her turbaned head after her coquettish fashion, until all her black curls danced a fandango, and showed her brilliant white teeth in a gay little laugh.
"Oh, you're jealous, are you?" she said. "I thought you would be!"
"Cherrie!"
"There, now, Charley, don't be cross! I just did it to make you jealous, and nothing else! I was mad at you for going off the way you did!"
"You know I could not help it!"