"Allah be praised! I may come in, then, my darling, may I not?"
Cherrie's answer was to throw the door wide open; and the young officer entered and took a seat, screened from the view of passers-by by the green gloom of the vines. That green twilight of roses and honeysuckles was just the thing for lovers to talk in; and Captain Cavendish had a great deal to say to Cherrie, and to all he said Cherrie had nothing to give but rapturous assents, and was altogether in the seventh heaven, not to say a few miles beyond that lofty elysium. It was all arranged at last as the young gentleman wished, and, lolling easily on the sofa, he went off on another tack.
"Are you often up in Redmon House, Cherrie?" he asked, stringing the black ringlets about his fingers.
Cherrie, seated on a low stool beside his couch, nestled luxuriously, with her head on his knee.
"Pretty often, George." It had come to that, you see. "Why?"
"Because—because I think you might find out something for me. I have a fancy, do you know, that the old lady doesn't over and above like me."
"I know she don't," said Cherrie, decidedly. "She can't bear you, nor Midge either. They scold Miss Natty like sixty every time you go there."
"The deuce they do? Suppose she fancied—mind, I only say fancied—I wanted to marry Miss Natty, do you suppose she would consent?"
"Consent! She'd pack Miss Natty bag and baggage out of the house, more likely. She'd die before she'd give in, would Mrs. Leroy."
Captain Cavendish fell to musing, and mused so long that Cherrie glanced up from under her black lashes, wondering what made his handsome face look so grave.