“Ah! He admires you, Dorise, hence I don’t like him,” Hugh blurted forth.
“But, surely, you’re not jealous, you dear old thing!” laughed the girl, tantalizing him. Perhaps she would not have uttered those words which cut deeply into his heart had she known the truth concerning the tragedy at the Villa Amette.
“I don’t like him because he seems to live by gambling,” Hugh declared. “I know your mother likes him very much—of course!”
“And she likes you, too, dear.”
“She may like me, but I fear she begins to suspect that we love each other, dearest,” he said in a hard tone. “If she does, she will take care in future to keep us apart, and I—I shall lose you, Dorise!”
“No—no, you won’t.”
“Ah! But I shall! Your mother will never allow you to marry a man who has only just sufficient to rub along with, and who is already in debt to his tailor. What hope is there that we can ever marry?”
“My dear Hugh, you are awfully pessimistic to-day,” the girl cried. “What is up with you? Have you lost heavily at the tables—or what?”
“No. I have been thinking of the future,” he said in a hard voice so very unusual to him. “I am thinking of your mother’s choice of a husband for you—George Sherrard.”
“I hate him—the egotistical puppy!” exclaimed the girl, her fine eyes flashing with anger. “I’ll never marry him—never!”