"I do not think so," said Fitzroy, in a low voice.
And then Nelly felt again how very foolish it was to remark upon such simple incidents in this strain.
"You don't understand my cousins, I see," she said. "It is nothing of the kind; but it is extraordinarily foolish of me to have absorbed everything, and forgotten that May was not a child any longer. She always seems a child to me."
"She looks quite as old as you do," her companion said.
"Oh, nonsense! she is full ten years younger than I am. However, it does not matter so much, for I am going away."
"So soon?" murmured Fitzroy.
"Soon! I have been here a fortnight—away from my little children." Mrs Brunton found it expedient to quench his tone of devotion by putting all her disadvantages in the foreground. He looked at her with more meaning than he had ever felt in his life in his eyes.
"Would it be indiscreet to ask where you were going?" he said.
"Not at all; I am going home. I have a little house at Haven Green, where my children are."
"I am going, too," he said. "May I come and see you? I shall be for some time in town."