"She is playing tennis with Lottie. Oh, you are leaving me!" as Frank nodded and turned away, and a distressed look crossed her face. "All day I have wanted to speak to you, and now you will not listen! Mr. Frank, I do not like my friends to be angry with me when I have done no wrong—no wrong at all. It is not treating me well!" And Annette looked at him with grave dignity.
Evidently, Frank had not expected this. He had been brooding over his grievance all day—nursing it, magnifying it, until he believed that he was greatly to be pitied. But this frankness on Annette's part cut away the ground from beneath his feet. How could he explain to her the manner in which she had hurt him? She was so unlike other girls—so simple and child-like. Frank found himself embarrassed; he stammered out something about a misunderstanding.
"A misunderstanding, surely, since I have been so unhappy as to offend you," returned Annette, gently. "Mr. Frank, will you tell me what I have done, that I may make amends? I have hurt you—well, that gives me pain. I think there is no one for whom I care so much as—"
"Monsieur," finished Frank, gloomily, and there was quite a scowl on his pleasant face. "Why don't you finish your speech, Miss Ramsay? We all know what you think of monsieur!"—which was very rude of Frank, only the poor fellow was too sore to measure his words. He was angry with himself, with her, with every one. He could not make her understand him; all these months he had been trying to win her, and there had been no response on her part; but this frank kindliness—
Annette looked at him for a moment with wide-open, perplexed eyes. She wished to comprehend his meaning.
"Well," she said, slowly, "and you are monsieur's son, are you not?"
Now what was there in this very ordinary speech—the mere statement of an obvious fact—to make Frank suddenly leap to his feet and grasp her hand?
"Do you mean that?" he exclaimed, eagerly. "Annette, do you really mean that you can care for me as well as for him? Tell me, quickly, dear! I have been trying so hard all these months to make you understand me; but you never seemed to see."
"What is it you wish me to understand?" she said, shyly; for, with all her simplicity, Annette could hardly mistake him now. "You quarrel with me for a word, but you tell me nothing plainly. Is it that I am too slow, or that you have not taken the trouble to instruct me?"
"Trouble! where you are concerned!" he said, tenderly. And then it all came out—the story of his love, his patient wooing, his doubts if his affection could be returned.