Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/226

216 "Oh, she didn't want me to do it—the day I went with him, the day I told him. She tried to prevent me."

"Would to God then she had!"

"Haven't you told them she's delicate too?" Francie asked, in her strange tone.

Gaston made no answer to this; but he broke out—"What power, in heaven's name, has he got over you? What spell has he worked? "

"He's an old friend—he helped us ever so much when we were first in Paris."

"But, my dearest child, what friends—what a man to know!"

"If we hadn't known him we shouldn't have known you. Remember that it was Mr. Flack who brought us that day to Mr. Waterlow's."

"Oh, you would have come some other way," said Gaston.

"Not in the least. We knew nothing about any other way. He helped us in everything—he showed us everything. That was why I told him—when he asked me. I liked him for what he had done."

Gaston, who had now also seated himself, listened to this attentively. "I see. It was a kind of delicacy."

"Oh, a kind!" She smiled.

He remained a little with his eyes on her face. "Was it for me?"

"Of course it was for you."