"You were always so sweet and friendly to me," he went on; "but I could never be sure that you really cared for me—that you cared for me enough to become my wife," finished the young man in a moved voice.
"You could not be sure until you asked me," returned Annette naïvely. "There was no need to make yourself so miserable, or to have given me this unhappy day."
"Have you been unhappy, too, my dearest?" but Frank looked supremely happy as he spoke.
"Yes; for I could not bear that anything should come between us. So you see, my friend, that, I too, have cared a good deal." But when Frank wanted her to tell him how long she had cared—"Was it only yesterday, or a week ago, or that day on which they had gone to the Albert Hall, when I gave you the flowers?" and so on, Annette only blushed and said she did not know.
"But surely you have some idea, my darling?"
"But why?" she answered, shyly. "Is it necessary to find out the beginning of affection? Always you have been kind to me. You have made me glad to see you. I have never separated you from monsieur since the day we talked of him so much. 'This young man resembles his father—he has the same kind heart:' that is what I said to myself that day"—and Frank was too content with this statement to wish to question his sweetheart more closely.
Mr. Harland was sitting in the study reading his paper, and talking occasionally to Averil, who was in her hammock-chair beside him, when a slim white figure glided between him and the sunshine, and Annette stood before him.
"Well, mademoiselle," he said, playfully—for this was his pet name for her—"what has become of the promised walk?"
"Oh, I have forgotten!" she said, with a little laugh; "and it is your fault, Mr. Frank"—but she did not look at the young man as she spoke. "Monsieur, you must forgive me, for I am not often so careless; and you must not scold your son, either, because we are both so happy."
"Eh, what!" exclaimed Mr. Harland, dropping his eye-glasses in his astonishment; for Frank actually, the young rogue, had taken Annette's hand, and was presenting her to him in the most curiously formal way.