“No, no; don’t do that. I want you to tell me something very disgraceful of yourself. If you don’t make yourself out the blackest kind of character, I shall not let you care for me.”
“Another time; not now.”
“Yes, now. Come.”
Easton laughed. “I can’t think of anything heinous enough for your purpose on such short notice.”
“Oh, Mr. Easton! Do you mean to say that you have never done anything to be ashamed of? Have you nothing on your conscience? What was that thing you said you oughtn’t to have done to Mr. Gilbert?”
The shadow of his lurking remorse fell over the bliss of the lover’s face, and he gave a sigh like those we heave when we wake from the forgetfulness of care to the remembrance of it. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, I do,” answered Mrs. Farrell. “If you’d been guilty of something really shabby, I should have felt more at home with you; but no matter, even if it isn’t strictly disgraceful. Go on.”
Easton did not laugh. “Yes, I will tell you,” he said; nevertheless, he did not tell her at once; he fell into a moody, unhappy silence, from which he suddenly started.
“I told you once before,” he began, “when I didn’t mean to tell you anything, that Gilbert and I were in the army together. I knew nothing of the business, and I chose to enter the ranks, where I should at least do no harm to the cause I wanted to serve. Gilbert was my captain; we had not known each other before; but he had known of me, and he made a point of finding me out among those poor fellows, and in spite of the gulf fixed between officers and men, he made himself my friend at once; we were younger than we are now—”
“How interesting!” said Mrs. Farrell; “it’s quite like a love-affair.”