His heart was beating with muffled throbs, his eyes flashed with eagerness, but he asked with seeming carelessness:
"What is her name?"
He was not in the least surprised when she answered:
"Miss Lester, and the other girls call her Liane. It is a pretty name, and, oddly enough, I read it once in a novel. She must have been named from it; don't you think, Jesse?"
"Perhaps so."
He could hardly speak, he was so excited, and Lyde rambled on:
"We have fallen in love with each other, pretty Liane and I. She always hurries to meet me and show me her gloves. Her eyes smile at me so tenderly, as if she were really fond of me, and I almost believe she is, for when I allow her to try on my gloves for me, she has such a caressing way, I almost long to kiss her. But then, perhaps, she has the same manner with all, just to get trade," disappointedly.
Devereaux recalled the caressing touch of her lips on his hand that night by the sea; her pretty, bashful gratitude, and groaned within himself.
"Oh, my lost love, my false love!"