Vick is either in hot pursuit of, or hot flight from, the tomcat; all her four legs are quivering and kicking in a mimic gallop.
"Do you remember," say I, again speaking, and again prefacing my words by an uneasy laugh, "how the boys at home used always to laugh at me, because I never knew how to flirt, nor had any pretty ways? Do you think"—(speaking slowly and hesitatingly)—"that boys—one's brothers, I mean—would be good judges of that sort of thing?"
"As good as any one else's brothers, I suppose," she says, with a low laugh, but still looking puzzled; "but why do you ask?"
"I do not know," reply I, trying to speak carelessly; "it came into my head."
"Has any one been accusing you?" she says, a little curiously, "But no! who could? You have seen no one, not even—"
"No, no!" interrupt I, shrinking from the sound of the name that I know is coming; "of course not; no one!"
The clock strikes eleven, and wakes Vick. Barbara rises, rolls up her knitting, and, going over to the fireplace, stands with one white elbow resting on the chimney-piece, and slender neck drooped, pensively gazing at the low fire.
"Do you know," she says, with a half-confused smile, that is also tinged with a little anxiety, "I have been thinking—it is the first time for three months that he has not been here at all, either in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening!"
"Is it?" say I, slightly shivering.
"I think," she says, with a rather embarrassed laugh, "that he must have heard you were out, and that that was why he did not come. You know I always tell you that he likes you best."