Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/165

162 Nora wondered, still smiling. "I might consider this very unkind," she said, "if I had not the patience of an angel. Would you kindly mention your reason?"

"Not now," he answered. "But never fear, when it comes it will be all-sufficient!" But he imparted it, a couple of days after, to Mrs. Keith, who came late in the afternoon to present her compliments on his recovery. She displayed an almost sisterly graciousness, enhanced by a lingering spice of coquetry; but somehow, as she talked, he felt as if she were an old woman and he still a young man. It seemed a sort of hearsay that they should ever have been mistress and lover. "Nora will have told you," he said, "of my wishing you kindly to keep her awhile longer. I can give you no better proof of my regard, for the fact is, my dear friend, I am in love with her."

"Come!" she cried. "This is interesting."

"I wish her to accept me freely, as she would accept any other man. For that purpose I must cease to be, in all personal matters, her guardian."

"She must herself forget her wardship, if there is to be any sentimentalizing between you,—all but forget it, at least. Let me speak frankly," she went on. Whereupon Roger frowned a bit, for he had known her frankness to be somewhat incisive. "It is all very well that you should be in love with her. You are not the first. Don't be frightened; your chance is fair. The needful point is that she should be just the least bit in love with you."

He shook his head with melancholy modesty. "I don't expect that. She loves me a little, I hope; but I say