Upon which Kate indulged herself in another mischievous laugh. Did he but know! “She is not like you,” said the girl in her temerity; “she is rather fond of giving advice.”
“Yes,” said Fred, growing bold. “That was what she was doing last night. Would you like me to tell you what it was about?”
“What it was about?” cried Kate, in consternation, with a violent sudden blush; but of course it must be nonsense, she represented to herself, looking at him with a certain anxiety. “You never could guess, Mr Huntley; it was something quite between ourselves.”
“That is very possible,” he said, so gravely that her fears were quite silenced; and he added in another moment, “but I know very well what it was. It was about me.”
“About you!”
“I have known Lady Winton a great many years,” said Fred, steadily. “I understand her ways. When she comes and takes a man’s place and sends him off for something she has left behind on purpose, he must be dull indeed if he does not know what she means. She was talking to you of me.”
“It was not I that said so!” cried Kate, who was in a great turmoil, combined of fright, confusion, and amusement. It would be such fun to hear what guesses he would make, and he was so sure not to find it out! “When you assert such a thing you must prove it,” she said, her eyes dancing with fun and rash delight, and yet with a secret terror in them too.
“She was warning you,” said Fred, with a long-drawn breath, in which there was some real and a good deal of counterfeit excitement, “not to trifle with me. She was telling you, that though I did not show many signs of feeling, I was still a man like other men, and had a heart——”
“Fancy Lady Winton saying all that,” cried Kate, with a tremulous laugh of agitation. “What a lively imagination you have—and about you!”
“But she might have said it with great justice,” said Fred, very gravely and steadily, “and about me.”