I took a chair at the other side of the fireplace.
"Why do you go away so far?" she asked pettishly. "Are you afraid I shall eat you? Come here;" and she indicated a chair close by her sofa at which I had looked longingly while fearing to venture so near.
"There!" she said with an air of comfort, and looked into my face with the open-eyed simplicity of a child. "Oh, Floyd," she exclaimed, but under her breath, "I am so glad to see you again! Are you glad to be here with me?"
"Very glad: it is not worth while saying how glad."
"Why not? I never enjoyed anything half so much as I enjoyed last evening, and half of it was because you were looking on. Tell me honestly now, was I a success?"
"So great a success that I wondered so superb a belle cared to speak to a boy like me. I often used to think of your future, Georgy, and had many brilliant dreams for you: I have no doubt that you will fulfil them all."
She had quite lost her air of weariness, and flashed into life and brilliance, and, starting up, was so close to me that I could feel the warmth and fragrance of her cheek and hair. I should have drawn away my chair, but that she had herself placed it; and now she fastened her little slippered feet on the rounds and looked into my eyes thus closely with the enchanting freedom of a child.
"It is so nice to hear you say such things!" she ran on, cooing into my ear. "I am so glad you meet me kindly! I have cried sometimes to think that my naughtiness at The Headlands had quite estranged you."
"Oh no. Why should you blame yourself?"
"Because I was to blame. But, Floyd, if you only knew what I have suffered you would forgive me. Say that you forgive me."