‘What! Don’t you love him?’ said Jocelyn, with a surprised stare up at her as she stood, in her concern appearing the very Avice who had kissed him twenty years earlier.
‘It is not much use to talk about that,’ said she.
‘Then, is it the soldier?’
‘Yes, though I have never spoken to him.’
‘Never spoken to the soldier?’
‘Never.’
‘Has either one treated you badly—deceived you?’
‘No. Certainly not.’
‘Well, I can’t make you out; and I don’t wish to know more than you choose to tell me. Come, Avice, why not tell me exactly how things are?’
‘Not now, sir!’ she said, her pretty pink face and brown eyes turned in simple appeal to him from her pedestal. ‘I will tell you all to-morrow; an that I will!’