Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/90

78 “No,” she said, looking me straight in the face. “But what difference did that make?”

“None at all, in one point of view,” said I. But to myself I was swearing that she should not go.

Then she said in a very low tone:

“He never leaves me. Ah! he makes everyone think——”

“Let ‘em think,” said I.

“If everyone thinks it——”

“Oh, come, nonsense!” said I.

“You know what you thought. What honest woman would have anything to do with me—or what honest man either?”

I had nothing to say about that; so I said again.

“Well, don’t go, anyhow.”

She spoke in lower tones, as she answered this appeal of mine:

“I daren’t refuse. He’ll be here again; and my mother——”

“Put it off a day or two,” said I. “And don’t take that thing.”

She looked at me, it seemed to me, in astonishment.

“Do you really care?” she asked, speaking very low.

I nodded. I did care, somehow.

“Enough to stand by me, if I don’t go?”

I nodded again.

“I daren’t refuse right out. My mother and he——”

She broke off.