“Good heavens! what have I done?” exclaimed Ponsonby, helpless and dismayed. “Shall I go away? shall I leave you?”
“Oh! it is nothing. It is over now,” said Franceline, her agitation quieted instantaneously by the sight of his. She dashed the tears from her cheeks impatiently; she was vexed with herself for giving way so before him. “Sit down; you are trembling all over,” said the young man; and he gently forced her into a chair. “I am sorry I said anything; I will never mention the subject again without your permission. Shall I go away?”
“It would be very ungracious to say ‘yes,’” she replied, trying to smile through the tears that hung like raindrops on her long lashes; “but you see how weak and foolish I am.”
“My poor darling! I will go and leave you. I have been too much for you. Only tell me, may I come soon again—just to ask how you are?”
She hesitated. To say yes would be tacitly to accept him; yet it was odious to turn him off like this without a word of kindly explanation to soften the pang. Ponsonby could not read these thoughts, so he construed her hesitation according to the immemorial logic of lovers.
“Well, never mind answering now,” he said; “I won’t bother you any more to-day. You will present my respects to the count, and say how sorry I was not to see him.”
He held out his hand for good-by.
“You will meet him on the road, I dare say,” said Franceline, extending hers. “You will not tell him how I have misbehaved to you?”
The shy smile that accompanied the request emboldened Ponsonby to raise the soft, white hand to his lips. Then turning away he overturned a little wicker flower-stand, happily with no injury to the sturdy green plant, but with considerable damage to the dignity of his exit.