“Precisely.”
“And what has come of it? Has he proposed, or is he only hovering on the brink, poor wretch?”
“How absurd you are, Lilly, with your English ideas!” cried Sybil, still in a sotto voce, although the music drowned everybody’s voice. “You won’t understand that one may discuss life with a young man without meaning any harm!”
“Harm? To his heart, do you mean?”
“Or to one’s own.”
“Have you got one, Sybil?” I asked quite seriously.
“Yes, I have, and a very sensitive one too, let me tell you,” she said in her vehemently emphatic way. “Mr. Halsted, will you take my friend to have some refreshment? Mr. Halsted—Miss Wallace.”
And off I went with this perfectly charming young man.
The first person I met in the supper-room was my mother, whom the doctor had just taken in and was plying with some delicious nectar of an American drink.
“My dear, I was beginning to wonder what had become of you,” she said. “It is growing rather late, is it not?”