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340 not thus pray, for I could not bear to lose a single one, not the very smallest, of your charms—your lovely hair, your sweet eyes, and sweeter lips. Nell, what do you suppose I am made of?"

"Flesh and blood, I suppose," I answer, giving him a soft pinch.

"Well, then, I can't stand this; do you know that we have been here more than ten minutes, and that I have not had a single kiss; do you think I am so patient?"

"Not to-day, Paul," I say trembling, "some day perhaps, or to-morrow, but not to-day, I cannot because of—of him, you know."

"Him? there should be only one man in the world to you now, Nell."

George Tempest, then," I say, turning crimson; "Lubin, you know."

"What of him?" asks Paul in surprise; "surely you are not bothering your head about him? Poor devil! he must be cut up at losing a little pet like you; but it is not your fault, you can't help it. I have a notion"—he goes on, smoothing my hair with his hand—"that this admirer of yours is a great, awkward, country-looking fellow, who does not know what to do with his arms and legs; in short, just what I first called him to you, a Lubin?"

"Perhaps you will see him some day," I answer, smiling a little to myself at Paul's notion of George; it must be a source of small wonder, then, that I fell in love with himself. "Paul," I say gently, "do you know why I have been fretting to-day? do you know why I have been crying so bitterly?"

"Well," he says, looking down on me with a whimsical air of pride and amusement, "I thought that you might have been thinking a little bit about me, perhaps?"

"No, no," I answer, smiling rather sadly, "it was not of you I was thinking just then, but of Mr. Tempest, who had scarcely left