"That is a great temptation, Dexie, coming from you; but a few weeks of your presence, even though I may not see you, will be heaven itself, compared to the life I must spend without you. I may, perhaps, see you again."
"No! Not alone, at least! Let this be good-bye, Mr. McNeil," and she tried to draw away her hands.
But he drew her close to him, and giving one long, earnest look into her eyes, he lifted her hands to his lips and pressed a burning kiss upon them; then the curtain dropped behind him.
Dexie stood where Hugh had left her for some minutes, listening to his retreating footsteps as he disappeared up the attic stairs, then sank down in the chair Hugh had occupied, and buried her face in her hands. There was a tumult in her heart that required some deep thinking before she would feel like herself again. Thoughts had arisen that had disquieted her. Hugh had told her that her heart had not yet awakened; was it so? Why, then, was she wearing Lancy's ring? She blushed as she pulled it hastily off, hiding it on her chain like a guilty thing.
The story she had been reading, and which she had thought so overdrawn, came into her mind; it had pleased her because she had thought it so delightfully unreal. But had there not been passages in her own life quite as romantic in their nature as that which seemed so interesting when read out of a story-book.
Her heart had not yet awakened! How those words seemed to repeat themselves over and over as she sat.
Had she awakened Hugh's heart only to disappoint him? Well, she had not intended nor wished to do it; but he was very much in earnest, and she was sorry. She sighed as she rose from her chair and picked up the book that still lay on the floor, but she had lost all interest in the story; so she threw it carelessly on the table and went downstairs to await the coming of the rest, her thoughts still busy over the problems that Hugh's unexpected visit had aroused.
Dexie found that the party had not improved Gussie's temper, for she came home with many complaints as to how she had been neglected.
"I wish you had gone," she said spitefully to Dexie. "I was sick and tired of hearing people ask where you were, and why you had not come, and there was not a soul there that I cared to talk to, even Mr. McNeil disappeared, no one knows where."
Dexie colored slightly as her father regarded her curiously; no further mention was made of the matter at the time. Mr. Sherwood, however, was not surprised when, a short time after, someone came behind him, and, with arms around his neck, confessed in his ear that "Mr. McNeil had been in to see her, but had come in through the attic, because he was not allowed in by the door, and that they had quarrelled a little, but parted friends," and ended by asking him "not to tell mamma, for fear Gussie might get hold of it."