“Really?” exclaimed Molly, with deeper sarcasm than before.
“Yes, impossible as it may appear to you,” he replied, flushing slightly under the fire of her large, magnetic dark eyes. “Miss Barry, you know that I have but lately left London and that I shall return in a few weeks?”
“Yes,” carelessly.
“Here is my plan, I shall ask Mrs. Barry to let me take charge of you and place you at school with my sisters to finish your education.”
Molly caught her breath quickly, and something like a sharp regret pierced her heart.
To herself she said:
“Ah, if I were not a little fraud what a future would lie before me!”
But looking up into his face with eyes that gave no sign of the pang she was enduring, she said:
“Mr. Laurens, you must have taken leave of your senses to talk about a girl of five-and-twenty finishing her education.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Barry, you look much younger than that, and you certainly do need a little more polish. The Barrys were always noted for their polished manners,” he replied, frankly, but the frankness on the whole was rather engaging.