Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/292

272 gayly, and smiled down at her lifted face. Remembering the letter, she corrected her expression to colder lines.

"There's no one to introduce us,"—he broke the pause. "Mayn't I—" He colored and put his hand into his pocket, and taking out her letter, folded the blank sheet out and produced a pencil. "It's hard to call one's own name," he continued. "Suppose we write our names?"

As he was clumsy in finesse, she understood his idea, and her eyes flashed. But she said nothing as he scribbled and handed the paper to her. She read, "C. K. Farringdon," and played with the pencil.

"Mr. Farringdon,"—she said it over meditatively. "How plainly you write! My name's Edith Eversley," she added, tranquilly, and, because she must, perforce, returned the sheet to him. She had a wicked delight in the defeat of his strategy which she could cleverly conceal.

"I wish," he deprecated, gently, but with persistence, "that you would write your name here—won't you, as a souvenir?"

But she shook her head and rose—angry, which she hid, but also amused at his pertinacity.

"I can't write decently with a pencil," she said, carelessly, and her eyes followed his hand putting the letter back into his pocket. That she should have actually had the letter in her hand, and had to give it back! But no quick-witted pretext had occurred to help her. Rose would think her stupid—utterly lacking in expedients.

She left the summer-house, unfurling her umbrella, and Farringdon followed instantly, his failure apparently forgotten.

They passed the tennis-court on their way to the house, and—

"Do you play ?" he asked.

"A little." Her intonation mocked the formula.

"Might we, then, this afternoon—" he hazarded.

She gave him a side glance. "If you don't mind losing," she suggested.

"But I play to win," he modestly met it, and again they laughed.

Rose Eversley looked with curiosity at her sister when she entered the dining-room for luncheon, followed by Farringdon, but Edith's face was non-committal. She was bright and vivacious, and made herself very pleasant to Farringdon, who sat by her. After luncheon they went to the tennis-court together.

"A delightful young man," Mrs. St. Cleve commented, putting up her lorgnette as she stood at the window with Rose, watching their disappearing figures, "but so far as money is concerned, a hopeless detrimental. Don't let your pretty sister get interested in him. He hasn't a cent except what he makes—he's an architect."

"Edith is to be depended upon," Rose said, enigmatically. She was five years older than her sister, and had drawn the inference of her own plainness, comparatively, ever since Edith had put on long dresses.

"Have you written to Christopher?" she asked, that night, invading Edith's room with her hair-brushes.

"No, I haven't," Edith said, thoughtfully. "I tried just now. It seems—I don't know how, exactly, but I just can't write it over again! If I had the letter I wrote this morning, I suppose I would send it; but to write it all over again—it's too horrible!"

Horrible'!" Rose repeated. "Very few people would think it that! He's rich, thoroughly good, and devoted to you."

"You put the least last," Edith said, slowly, "and you're right. I'm not sure Christopher is so devoted to me, after all. He may only fancy that I like him, and from his high estate—"

"Nonsense!" Rose said, warmly. "He isn't, as you know, that sort of a man. I've known him for years—" She paused.

Edith said nothing; she brushed her hair with careful slowness.

"He is so sincere—so straightforward," Rose went on, in an impersonal tone; "and as papa has had so much ill luck and our circumstances have changed—they are changed, you know, though we are still able to keep up a certain appearance—he has been unchanged. You ought to consider—"

"You consider Christopher's interests altogether," Edith said. "I've some, too."

"Oh no! You needn't think of them with Christopher," Rose said, seriously.