Part 68

"I'll be over, presently," Croyden replied. "I don't want any tea, you know."

"Good!" Macloud answered, from the hallway. "Come along, as soon as you wish--but don't come too soon."

AN OLD RUSE

Macloud found Miss Carrington plucking a few belated roses, which, somehow, had escaped the frost.

She looked up at his approach, and smiled--the bewilderingly bewitching smile which lighted her whole countenance and seemed to say so much.

"Back again! to Clarendon and its master?" was her greeting.

"And, if I may, to you," he replied.

"Very good! After them, you belong to me," she laughed.

"Why after?" he inquired.

"I don't know--it was the order of speech, and the order of acquaintance," with a naive look.

"But not the order of--regard."

"Content!" she exclaimed. "You did it very well for a--novice."

He tapped the gray hair upon his temples.

"A novice?" he inflected.

"You decline to accept it?--Very well, sir, very well!"

"I can't accept, and be honest," he replied.

"And you must be honest! Oh, brave man! Oh, noble gentleman! Perchance, you will accept a reward: a cup of tea--or a high ball!"

"Perchance, I will--the high ball!"

"I thought so! come along."

"You were not going out?"

She looked at him, with a sly smile.

"You know that I have just returned," she said. "I saw you in the window at Clarendon."

"I was there," he admitted.

"And you came over at once--prepared to be surprised that I was here."

"And found you waiting for me--just as I expected."

"Oh!" she cried. "You're horrid! perfectly horrid!"

"Peccavi! Peccavi!" he said humbly.

"Te absolvo!" she replied, solemnly. "Now, let us make a fresh start--by going for a walk. You can postpone the high ball until we return."