Cicely’s face flushed again.
“I wish you would not say those things, Trevor. It is disagreeable; Mr. Guildford is quite a different man from what you fancy. I am quite sure his head is full of much more important matters than falling in love. He is an exceedingly clever and learned man.”
“And do ‘exceedingly clever and learned men’ never fall in love?” asked Mr. Fawcett. “It is to be hoped you don’t scorn the idea of exceedingly clever and learned women being guilty of such a weakness.”
His tone was light and bantering, but to Cicely’s quick ears a slight and very unusual bitterness was discernible through the raillery. She looked sorry.
“I don’t believe you care a bit for me, Cicely,” said Trevor, before she had made up her mind what to say.
She looked up in his face with her clear kind eyes. “Don’t say that, Trevor,” she said. “How could I not care for you? Have we not been companions in everything almost longer than I can remember? I cannot recall any part of my life without finding you in it. Dear Trevor, don’t speak so. And please don’t laugh at me and call me clever and learned. I am neither, only things have made me graver and quieter than other girls.”
Mr. Fawcett was standing beside her now. He stooped and kissed her on the forehead.
“I didn’t mean to vex you, Cicely,” he said.
Cicely smiled and peace was made. But she owned to herself that Trevor had not been quite as kindly and good-natured as usual in his remarks this morning.
Then the luncheon-gong sounded, and Mrs. Methvyn and Geneviève came into the room.