“When—when are you going back?” asked Esmeralda, with an anxiety which she made no effort to conceal. “Not very soon, I hope. Jack goes to-morrow, and that is quite enough at one time. Oh, I do hate the end of the Christmas season! Everyone seems to go away. In a fortnight or so Pixie will be off, and Mademoiselle with her. It has been so delightful having a visitor in the house, and she has been so kind and useful. She made most of the things on the table to-night,—all those pretty iced cakes.”
“Ah, yes! Very clever, I’m sure,” said Hilliard absently. It was easy to see that he had no attention to spare for Mademoiselle or her confectionery, and presently he added in a lower tone, “There is no immediate hurry for my return. I can just as well stay another three or four days, but I must be back in town before this day week. I fear there is no getting out of that.”
“Glue?” queried Esmeralda saucily. They were sitting together at a little table behind most of the other guests, and she lay back in her chair looking up at him with a roguish smile. “Glue?”
“Glue principally. It is a very—er—engrossing occupation,” returned Hilliard, nobly resisting the inclination to pun; “but I think it could manage without me for a few days longer, and perhaps we could have another ride together. There is a meet somewhere near the day after to-morrow. Shall you be there?”
Esmeralda hesitated, seized with a sudden mysterious disinclination to say “No,” a desperate longing to say “Yes,” and yet—and yet,—how could it decently be done?
“I—don’t know! It’s Bridgie’s turn. We have only one horse between us, and I have been the last three times. I don’t like to ask her again. It seems so mean.”
“But if you did ask, she would let you go. She would not mind taking her turn later on?”
“Oh no, or not at all, for the matter of that. There’s nothing Bridgie wouldn’t give away if anyone else wanted it. She’s an angel. It’s just because she’s so sweet that I’m ashamed to be selfish.”
“I can understand that, but—just for once! If you were to ask her very nicely to change places with you this time, because—because—er—”—Hilliard hesitated and pulled his moustache in embarrassment—“because you—”
“Yes, that’s just it. What can I say? Because what?” laughed Esmeralda gaily, then suddenly met the gaze of a pair of deep blue eyes, twinkling no longer, but fixed upon her in intent, earnest scrutiny, and flushed in mysterious embarrassment.