“But you might for me. Have you forgotten old days?” continued she, bridling and flirting, and altogether showing herself off to advantage.
“No, I have not,” replied Richard. “And I am not likely to do so,” he pointedly added.
“Ah, I felt sure of that. My heart told me so. When you went off, that dreadful night, leaving me to anguish and suspense, I thought I should have died. I never have had, so to say, a happy moment until this, when I meet you again.”
“Don’t be a fool, Afy!” was Richard’s gallant rejoinder, borrowing the favorite reproach of Miss Carlyle. “I was young and green once; you don’t suppose I have remained so. We will drop the past, if you please. How is Mr. Jiffin?”
“Oh, the wretch!” shrieked Afy. “Is it possible that you can have fallen into the popular scandal that I have anything to say to him? You know I’d never demean myself to it. That’s West Lynne all over! Nothing but inventions in it from week’s end to week’s end. A man who sells cheese! Who cuts up bacon! Well, I am surprised at you, Mr. Richard!”
“I have been thinking what luck you were in to get him,” said Richard, with composure. “But it is your business not mine.”
“Could you bear to see me stooping to him?” returned Afy, dropping her voice to the most insinuating whisper.
“Look you, Afy. What ridiculous folly you are nursing in your head I don’t trouble myself to guess, but, the sooner you get it out again the better. I was an idiot once, I don’t deny it; but you cured me of that, and cured me with a vengeance. You must pardon me for intimating that from henceforth we are strangers; in the street as elsewhere. I have resumed my own standing again, which I periled when I ran after you.”
Afy turned faint. “How can you speak those cruel words?” gasped she.
“You have called them forth. I was told yesterday that Afy Hallijohn, dressed up to a caricature, was looking after me again. It won’t do, Afy.”