“Well, nothing definite. What could you expect a girl to say after so short an acquaintance? But this I can tell you, that the proposal is not altogether distasteful to her, and that I have permission to speak to her at some future time, when we have known each other longer.”
“You have?”
“Yes.”
“You are quite sure?”
“Certain.”
“There is no mistake about her silence, for example, that might have led you into misinterpreting her wishes altogether?”
“Nothing of the kind is possible. Of course I could not ask the girl for any promise, or anything of that sort. All I asked was, whether she would allow me at some future time to ask her more definitely; and I am so well satisfied with her reply that I am convinced I shall marry her.”
“And is this the fix you wish me to help you out of?” said Ingram, rather coldly.
“Now, Ingram,” said the younger man in penitential tones, “don’t cut up rough about it. You know what I mean. Perhaps I have been hasty and inconsiderate about it; but one thing you may be sure, that Sheila will never have to complain of me if she marries me. You say I don’t know her yet, but there will be plenty of time before we are married. I don’t propose to carry her off to-morrow morning. Now, Ingram, you know what I mean about helping me in the fix—helping me with her father you know, and with herself, for the matter of that. You can do anything with her, she has such a belief in you. You should hear how she talks of you—you never heard anything like it.”
It was an innocent bit of flattery, and Ingram smiled good-naturedly at the boy’s ingenuousness. After all, was he not more loveable and more sincere in this little bit of simple craft, used in the piteousness of his appeal, than when he was giving himself the airs of a man-about-town, and talking of women in a fashion which, to do him justice, expressed nothing of his real sentiments?