Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/216

206 generally associated with levity, but her face, as she spoke, was none the less deeply serious—serious even to pain.

"We're square?" Mr. Flack repeated.

"I don't think you ought to ask for anything more. Good-bye."

"Good-bye? Never!" cried the young man.

He had an air of flushing with disappointment which really showed that he had come with a certain confidence of success.

Something in the way Francie repeated her "Good-bye!" indicated that she perceived this and that in the vision of such a confidence there was little to please her. "Do go away!" she broke out.

"Well, I'll come back very soon," said Mr. Flack, taking his hat.

"Please don't—I don't like it." She had now contrived to put a wide space between them.

"Oh, you tormentress!" he groaned. He went toward the door, but before he reached it he turned round. "Will you tell me this, anyway? Are you going to marry Mr. Probert—after this?"

"Do you want to put that in the paper?"

"Of course I do—and say you said it!" Mr. Flack held up his head.

They stood looking at each other across the large room. "Well then—I ain't. There!"

"That's all right," said Mr. Flack, going out.