“I’ll be sure to, now that I know you care any thing about it.”

“And what made you think I didn’t care about it, if you please, sir?”

“Why,” stammered he, quite at a loss what to say, and so coming out with the truth, “I thought you were offended at my being engaged to Sophie!”

“But what should there be in that to offend me?” demanded Cornelia, with the mouth and eyes of Innocence.

“I don’t know:—­well—­I knew you first!” he blurted forth, beginning to wish he had been satisfied to hold his tongue.

Cornelia took her breath once or twice, and then bit it off on her under lip, as if about to say something, and afterward hesitating about it.

“I don’t quite understand you,” she managed to get out at last; “do you—­forgive me if I’m wrong—­but perhaps you’re thinking of that time—­when—­just before I went away?”

Saying this, she drooped her eyes in a confusion, which, because more than half of it was genuine, made her look very fascinating.  Nothing is more seductive than a little truth.  As Bressant looked at her, and thought of what lie had done at that last interview, soft thrills crept sweetly through his blood, and he felt a most extraordinary tenderness for her.

“I’ve often thought of it,” answered he, in a tone which did not belie his words.

“Well—­so have I, to tell the truth!” rejoined Cornelia, looking up for a moment with glowing candor.  “But we won’t either of us think of it any more, will we?  It seems very long ago, now; and it’ll never be again, and we ought to forget it ever was at all.  But, oh! most of all, you must forget it if it will ever be a reason for your disliking me, or wishing not to see me!  I know how disagreeable it must be to you to think of it now.”

Did Cornelia know what she was about? had she netted beforehand all the meshes of this web she was throwing over him? the admirable mixture of frankness and subtlety, nature and art—­must it not have been planned and calculated beforehand, to bewilder and mislead?—­It may well be doubted.  No preconceived and elaborated programme can come up to the inspiration of the moment, which is genius.  Such felicitous wording of subject-matter so objectionable:  such an unassailable presentation of so indefensible a principle—­could hardly have been the fruit of premeditation.  Cornelia was allowing things to take their course.

“It isn’t disagreeable! it’s—­” Bressant broke off, unable or unprepared to say what it was.  “Why must we forget it?” he added, with a half-assured look of significance.  “You said we were brother and sister, you know!”

She laughed in his face, at the same time drawing her hand from his arm, and stepping away from him.  How tantalizingly lovely she looked!

“It won’t do to carry the privileges of relationship too far, my dear sir! at least, not until after you’re married.  There! go back to your Sophie—­I didn’t mean to keep you so long—­really!  No, no!” as he made an offer to approach her; “go! and be quick, I advise you.  Good-by!”