Yet, when her companion gently attempted to slip an arm about her waist, she decisively repulsed him.
“No, no; you must not make so free—we are almost strangers,” she exclaimed, blushing warmly.
“Strangers! Why I love you, little girl! Cannot you love me a little in return?” he pleaded.
Berry was about to answer him yes, taking this for a proposal of marriage, when she suddenly remembered the gossip about his betrothal to Rosalind, and drawing back, she faltered tremulously:
“But—but—they say that you are engaged to marry Miss Montague!”
“Bah! What has that to do with your being my sweetheart, I wonder; she need not know about it,” laughed Charley Bonair, leaning as close to her as she would permit, for she was recoiling in perplexity, murmuring:
“But is it true?”
“Why, yes, little one, I’m to marry her some day, I suppose! Deuced pretty girl, you know, and in ‘my set,’ and all that—very proper, of course. But I mean to have as many sweethearts as I like, before and after the wedding, if you please!”
If he had thrust a knife in her tender heart Berry could not have moaned more piteously, for all at once he seemed to her a monster instead of an adorable Prince Charming. With that heartbreaking little moan, she cried plaintively:
“Oh, take me home, take me home quickly! Please, please, please!”