Mrs. Leroy mused a few moments, while Nathalie wrote, and then looked up.
"I'll spare you this afternoon, Natty, since your mother is sick. You can take the bills in with you and collect them. If you are back by nine, it will do."
Nathalie was so amazed, she dropped her pen and sat staring, quite unable to return a word of thanks, and not quite certain she was not dreaming.
"Get on, get on!" exclaimed Lady Leroy, in her customary testy tone. "You'll never have the bills done at that rate."
Nathalie finished the bills mechanically, and with a mind far otherwise absorbed. Then she went to her room, and put on her hat and mantle for another walk to Speckport; but all the time that uneasy feeling of doubt and uncertainty remained. Mrs. Leroy had acted so strangely, had been so ominously quiet and unlike herself, and had not consented. Nathalie came in dressed for town, and bent over her, until her long bright curls swept the yellow old face.
"Dear Mrs. Leroy!" she pleadingly said, "I cannot feel satisfied until you actually say you agree to this engagement. Do—do, if you love your Natty, for all my happiness depends upon it. Do say you consent, and I will never offend you again as long as I live?"
Lady Leroy glared up at her with green, and glittering, and wicked old eyes.
"If I don't consent, will you break off, Natty?"
"You know I cannot. I love him with all my heart. Oh, Mrs. Leroy! remember you were once young yourself, and don't be hard!"
Looking at that dry and withered old antediluvian, it was hard to imagine her ever young—harder still to imagine her knowing anything about the fever called love. She pushed Nathalie impatiently away.