"Don't think about it, then. Nonsense, Gipsy—you know you're to be my little wife!"
She laughed and extended her hand, though her dark cheek grew crimson.
"Well, there, I forgive you, Archie. Will that do? And now let us go into the supper-room, for I'm starving. One of my early habits I have not outgrown—and that is, a most alarming appetite."
"Now I shall have her all to myself for the rest of the evening," thought Archie, as he stood beside her, and watched triumphantly the many savage and ferocious glances cast toward him by the gentlemen.
But Archie found himself slightly mistaken; for Gipsy, five minutes later, told him to be off—that he was an old bore, and not half as agreeable as the most stupid of her beaus. Then laughing at his mortified face, she danced and flirted unmercifully, leaving Mr. Rivers to think she was the most capricious elf that ever tormented a young lawyer.
Every day for a week after he was a constant visitor at Mr. Moore's. And every day for a week he went away as he came, without seeing Gipsy. She was always out riding, or driving, or "not at home," though he could see her plainly laughing at him at the window. The willful fairy seemed to take a malicious delight in teasing the life out of poor Archie. Evening after evening she accepted the escort of a handsome young English baronet, Sir George Stuart, the most devoted of all her lovers—leaving Archie to bear it as he pleased. And between jealousy, and rage, and mortification, and wounded pride, Mr. Rivers had a hard time of it. It was too bad to see his own little Gipsy—his girlish lady-love—taken from him this way without being able to say a word against it.
So Archie fell a prey to "green and yellow melancholy," and never saw the stately young nobleman without feeling a demoniacal desire to blow his brains out; and nothing prevented him from doing it but the becoming respect he had for the laws of his country.
One morning, however, for a wonder, he had the good fortune to find Gipsy alone in the parlor, looking perfectly charming in her becoming deshabille.
"How did you enjoy yourself last night at Mrs. Greer's ball? I saw you there with that fool of a baronet," said Archie, rather savagely.
"I enjoyed myself very well, as I always do. And I must beg of you not to speak of Sir George in that way, Mr. Rivers. I won't allow it."