CHAPTER XXXII.
“Let me see George Hinton’s letter, Norman?” said Mrs. de Vere; and he passed it to her across the table, then sat musing with a far-off light in his grave, dark eyes.
He sat thinking of the past—of that day long years ago when going into the ladies’ car he had first seen the lovely child whose life he had afterward saved. He remembered, as if it had been yesterday, the moment when Sweetheart had first awakened and turned upon him and the others in the car the sweet light of her drowsy, azure eyes. What a little beauty she looked with her dazzling coloring, her rosebud mouth and dimples, her fluffy golden hair! If she had grown up like that, was it any wonder men went down like chaff before her smiles?
A light came into his eyes. Something had dawned upon him suddenly but convincingly.
“Why should I be surprised?” he thought. “The child was a coquette even then to the tips of her rosy fingers. The drummers all saw it, and smiled at it. She made a victim of me, even in innocent babyhood. Is it any wonder that she has fulfilled the promise of early years?”
He frowned, then sighed. It was not pleasant to think of that pretty child, scarce more than seventeen, amusing herself in this wicked fashion. Norman de Vere had old-fashioned ideas in many things. He called it wicked to trifle with the human heart.
Mrs. de Vere looked perplexed.
“Norman, what are you going to do?” she said. “Mr. Hinton seems to think we ought to take her back here.”
“There is not the least doubt about that. We will have to do so,” he replied, decisively.
“If she is so pretty and so wild she may prove troublesome,” Mrs. de Vere observed, anxiously.