Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/251

Peterkin you think me. I'm not deceitful. I couldn't help changing, but I've not tried to hide it. I told Diana that I had been engaged to you once, and to—to other people. And I told her that the sight of her had driven every other woman off the earth, as far as I was concerned."

Anne made a hasty effort to speak, but he went on firmly.

"I told her how badly I'd behaved to you and—the others. I said how sorry I was to have behaved in that way, and she forgave me. She said she was very sorry for you too."

"Oh!"

Anne wrenched away her arm and hurried into the house, speechless with some emotion Georgie could not fathom, and, much perturbed, he stayed behind on the terrace for a minute or two.

There was to be a dance after dinner that night, and hundreds of brightly colored Chinese lanterns lent romance and mystery to the garden, and made the darkness visible, down the shadowy paths. 235