‘I hope you will always do that.’

’Nay—­I will make no such promise.  That I will always have a friend’s feeling for you, a friend’s interest in your welfare, a friend’s triumph in your success—­that I will promise.  But friendly words, Conway, are sometimes misunderstood.’

‘Never by me,’ said he.

’No, not by you—­certainly not by you.  I did not mean that.  I did not expect that you should misinterpret them.’  Then she laughed hysterically—­a little low, gurgling, hysterical laugh; and after that she wiped her eyes, and then she smiled, and then she put her hand very gently upon his shoulder.  ’Thank God, Conway, we are quite safe there—­are we not?’

He had made a blunder, and it was necessary that he should correct it.  His watch was lying in the trough of his easel, and he looked at it and wondered why Miss Van Siever was not there.  He had tripped, and he must make a little struggle and recover his step.  ’As I said before, it shall never be misunderstood by me.  I have never been vain enough to suppose for a moment that there was any other feeling—­not for a moment.  You women can be so careful, while we men are always off our guard!  A man loves because he cannot help it; but a woman has been careful, and answers him—­with friendship.  Perhaps I am wrong to say that I never thought of winning anything more; but I never think of winning more now.’  Why the mischief didn’t Miss Van Siever come!  In another five minutes, despite himself, he would be on his knees, making a mock declaration, and she would be pouring forth the vial of her mock wrath, or giving him mock counsel as to the restraint of his passion.  He had gone through it all before, and was tired of it; but for his life he did not know how to help himself.

‘Conway,’ said she, gravely, ‘how dare you address me in such language.’

‘Of course it is very wrong, I know that.’

’I’m not speaking of myself now.  I have learned to think so little of myself, as even to be indifferent to the feeling of injury you are doing me.  My life is a blank, and I almost think that nothing can hurt me further.  I have not heart left enough to break; no, not enough to be broken.  It is not of myself that I am thinking, when I ask you how do you dare to address my in such language.  Do you not know that it is an injury to another?’

‘To what other?’ asked Conway Dalrymple, whose mind was becoming rather confused, and who was not quite sure whether the other one was Mr Dobbs Broughton, or somebody else.

’To that poor girl who is coming here now, who is devoted to you, and to whom, I do not doubt, you have uttered words which ought to have made it impossible to speak to me as you spoke not a moment since.’