“I suppose you call them the poor, in England,” said Margaret, doubtfully, “but you know a great deal better than I do, Aubrey; for one thing, you are older. I think perhaps Jean will think I ought to go in now.”
“Certainly, I am a great deal older; but not so very much, either. I am twenty-five—just about the right age to go with eighteen. Yes, tell me a little more. I shall recollect about—what do you call them? the common people—not the poor. Go on, my moralist; I am ready to be taught.”
“I think I hear Grace calling,” she said, rising to her feet. “I am sure Jean will think the wind is getting cold, and that I should have gone in before.”
“The wind is as soft as summer,” he said, with a little excitement, “and the evening as sweet as—yourself. Wait a little, only a few minutes; there is something I wish so much to say to you.”
“Oh, Mr. Aubrey!” she said, frightened. “Do not say it! I would rather you did not say it. Once I did very wrong, not wishing to hurt a person’s feelings; but that is what I must never do any more.”
“Are you sure,” he said, rising too, with a sudden flush of anger, “that you know what I was going to say?”
Margaret paused, with an alarmed look at him, the color wavering in her cheeks, her eyes very anxious, her lips a little apart.
“What I was going to say,” he continued, pointedly, “was, that I fear I must soon leave the villa, and the fine weather, and your delightful society. This kind of holiday life cannot endure forever.”
“Oh!” She uttered her favorite exclamation with a look of distress and, he thought, disappointment. This was balm to Aubrey’s heart.
“Yes, I am sorry, too. But what can be done when duty calls? My office is getting clamorous, and there is nothing for a man to do here. Now, perhaps, we had better carry out your intention, and go back to Aunt Jean.”