"I have not congratulated you yet, Mr. Gerard," Esther says, timidly.
"Congratulated me!—what upon?" he asks, absently, staring vacantly at her.
"Upon your engagement to Miss Blessington."
A shade crosses his face. "Oh yes, to be sure! I had forgotten. Thanks! you are very good, I'm sure."
"I hope you will be very happy—quite happy."
"Thanks. Wish that I may be Prime Minister, or Commander-in-Chief, or something equally probable, while you are about it," he says, sardonically.
"I wish you to be happy," she repeats, gently, "and I hope that is not improbable."
"Such a wish in your mouth is something like a butcher with his knife at its throat wishing a sheep a long life!"
A guilty sense of hypocrisy in wishing him happy whom, less than forty-eight hours ago, she had been congratulating herself on his certain misery, keeps her dumb.
"Why could not you have sent me word that you were here, and I would have kept away?" he asks, flashing angrily upon her.