“Done!”
“Done! Come into the beech avenue,” the painter pleaded, “just for a few moments, before that little beast follows us. You know he will!”
“He can’t!” Susanna’s golden eyelashes drooped upon crimson cheeks. “He can’t get down! I—I took away the ladder before I came away!” she owned. Both hands were imprisoned, her blue eyes lifted, lost themselves in the brown ones that looked down at her.
“Was that because you wanted—to be alone with me? Was it?” demanded Wopse.
“Oh, Hal, don’t!”
“I’ll let you go when you have owned up, not before,” Wopse said sternly.
Susanna’s reply came in a whisper: “You—know—it—was!”
The whisper was so faint that Wopse had to bend quite low to catch it. Of course he need not have kissed Susanna. But he did, as Alaric Osmond-Orme and Lord Beaumaris appeared, walking confidentially together arm-in-arm.
“I think my little stratagem succeeds!” Lord Beaumaris had just said, in reference to the preference exhibited by his daughter for the society of the pretended painter. And Alaric had responded:
“Yes, as you say, my plan has proved quite a brilliant success!” when Lord Beaumaris clutched his cousin’s arm.