"Now you are vexed with me. What have I done?" she inquires, fixing on him the innocent gaze of her large, soft eyes. "I hope you haven't a bad temper," she goes on, earnestly, almost confidingly, "for Bert isn't an angel, I can assure you; and if you're both cross, won't you have a lovely time when you marry."
Vexation at this aggravating little beauty almost gets the better of the young man's politeness.
"Miss Brooke, if you weren't such a pretty child, I should like to shake you soundly, and send you off to your little bed!" he exclaims.
She flushes crimson, flashes him an angry glance from her lovely eyes, and curls her red lips into a decided and deliberate moue at him. Then, holding her pretty head high, she walks from the room.
"Has she taken me at my word?" he asks himself, rather blankly.
But no; Irene has only gone to the housekeeper's room, to leave a message for her father that she has gone to the ball with Mr. Kenmore. It does not enter her girlish mind that she is doing an improper thing, or that her father would object to it.
Old Faith, wiser in this world's lore than her willful little mistress, raises vehement objections.
"You mustn't do no such thing, Miss Irene, darling," she says. "Miss Bertha will be downright outrageous about you coming there along of her beau."
The pansy-blue eyes flash, the red lips pout mutinously.