“I am sure I do not,” he answered, laughing at her injured air.
“Well, but I shall—if you go to playing at formality with me”—this with a charming little pout as she threw herself into a chair, seized a fan from the desk near her, and began to sway it back and forth with piquant grace, while her companion watched her with admiring interest.
“I am sorry papa is out,” she resumed, after a minute, and apparently regarding the other topic as settled, “for I want some money. I suppose I can have everything charged, but I do so enjoy having a lot of nice, fresh, crisp bills in my own hands to pay for what I buy. Will he be in soon, do you think?”
“I am sure I cannot tell,” replied the young man, glancing at the clock, then back, with an expression of yearning tenderness, to the graceful figure in the chair opposite him.
His color came and went, and his heart was beating heavily with an emotion which he was striving to conceal, for he feared that it would never do to betray to his proud employer’s daughter that he had dared to love her with all the strength of his intensely strong nature.
At least, he would not presume to betray his secret for a long while yet; perhaps, if fortune’s wheel should some time turn in his favor, he might dare to confess his affection for the lovely heiress, provided she remained the sweet and unaffected girl she had always hitherto been.
Gerald Winchester was no ordinary young man.
Confided to the care of an aunt, Miss Honor Winchester—almost from the hour of his birth, shortly after which his mother had died—he had been reared in very limited circumstances, although Miss Winchester was a well-educated and cultivated woman, and had given him careful training, both morally and intellectually.
She had a small annuity, which, as the boy grew older, she found insufficient for their mutual needs, and, desirous of doing her utmost for her charge, she resolved to leave the small town in Rhode Island, which for many years had been her home, and go to New York, where she hoped to get something to do to increase her slender income.