“If you are broken, if your ship has been cast ashore, we will get it mended again,” said Christian, with more of humour and lightheartedness than she had either felt or used for many a day. “But no more of that, Halbert, just now. Tell me, will you go to see James to-night?”
“No, I can’t; it would be unseemly besides.”
Halbert will not leave his sister the first night of his return, and Christian feels relieved; after a pause, he continues:
“How do you like Elizabeth now, Christian; are James and she happy together?”
“I have no doubt they are,” said Christian, evasively; “why should they not be?”
“But you don’t like her.”
“I never said so, Halbert.”
“Well, that’s true enough; but I inferred it.”
“Nay, you must make no inferences. Elizabeth can be very pleasant and lovable; if she is not always so, it is but because she does not choose to exercise her powers of pleasing.”
“So she can be lovable when she likes. But it was she, was it not, that introduced Mary to Forsyth?” said Halbert, his brow darkening.