Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/121

118 "Mrs. Middleton," said Roger, in downright fashion, "knows nothing about her. Mrs. Middleton," and he lowered his voice and laughed, "is not an oracle of wisdom." He glanced into the other room at their hostess and her complaisant screen. He felt with peculiar intensity that, whether she was napping or no, she was a sadly superficial,—in fact a positively immoral,—old woman. It seemed absurd to believe that this fair, wise creature before him had lent herself to a scheme of such a one's making. He looked awhile at her deep clear eyes and her gracious lips. It would be a satisfaction to smile with her over Mrs. Middleton's machinations. "Do you know what she wants to do with us?" he went on. "She wants to make a match between us."

He waited for her smile, but it was heralded by a blush,—a blush portentous, formidable, tragical. Like a sudden glow of sunset in a noonday sky, it covered her fair face and burned on her cloudless brow. "The deuce!" thought Roger. "Can it be,—can it be?" The smile he had invoked followed fast; but this was not the order of nature.

"A match between us!" said Miss Sands. "What a brilliant idea!"

"Not that I cannot easily imagine falling in love with you," Roger rejoined; "but—but—"

"But you are in love with some one else." Her eyes, for a moment, rested on him intently. "With your protégée!"

Roger hesitated. It seemed odd to be making this sacred confidence to a stranger; but with this matter of Mrs. Middleton's little arrangement between them, she