“Then I must be content,” she rejoined, “to remain in the dark. I had intended, out of my regard for Emily, to suggest that you might—with advantage to yourself, and to interests that are very dear to you—be more careful in your behavior to Mr. Mirabel. Are you disposed to listen to me?”
“Do you wish me to answer that question plainly, Miss de Sor?”
“I insist on your answering it plainly.”
“Then I am not disposed to listen to you.”
“May I know why? or am I to be left in the dark again?”
“You are to be left, if you please, to your own ingenuity.”
Francine looked at him, with a malignant smile. “One of these days, Mr. Morris—I will deserve your confidence in my ingenuity.” She said it, and went back to the house.
This was the only element of disturbance that troubled the perfect tranquillity of the day. What Francine had proposed to do, with the one idea of making Alban serve her purpose, was accomplished a few hours later by Emily’s influence for good over the man who loved her.
They passed the afternoon together uninterruptedly in the distant solitudes of the park. In the course of conversation Emily found an opportunity of discreetly alluding to Mirabel. “You mustn’t be jealous of our clever little friend,” she said; “I like him, and admire him; but—”
“But you don’t love him?”