Wilfrid’s hand travelled mechanically to his pricking cheek-bone.

Was it possible that a love-scene was coming on as a pendant to that monstrously ridiculous affair of half-an-hour back?  To know that she had sufficient sensibility was gratifying, and flattering that it aimed at him.  She was really a darling little woman:  only too absurd!  Had she been on the point of saying that she would always like to be where he, Wilfrid, was?  An odd touch of curiosity, peculiar to the languid emotions, made him ask her this:  and to her soft “Yes,” he continued briskly, and in the style of condescending fellowship:  “Of course we’re not going to part!”

“I wonder,” said Emilia.

There she sat, evidently sounding right through the future with her young brain, to hear what Destiny might have to say.

The ‘I wonder’ rang sweetly in his head.  It was as delicate a way of confessing, “I love you with all my soul,” as could be imagined.  Extremely refined young ladies could hardly have improved upon it, saving with the angelic shades of sentiment familiar to them.

Convinced that he had now heard enough for his vanity, Wilfrid returned emphatically to the tone of the world’s highroad.

“By the way,” he said, “you mustn’t have any exaggerated idea of this night’s work.  Remember, also, I have to share the honours with Captain Gambier.”

“I did not see him,” said Emilia.

“Are you not cold?” he asked, for a diversion, though he had one of her hands.

She gave him the other.

He could not quit them abruptly:  nor could he hold both without being drawn to her.

“What is it you say?” Wilfrid whispered:  “men kiss us when we are happy.  Is that right? and are you happy?”

She lifted a clear full face, to which he bent his mouth.  Over the flowering hawthorn the moon stood like a windblown white rose of the heavens.  The kiss was given and taken.  Strange to tell, it was he who drew away from it almost bashfully, and with new feelings.

Quite unaware that he played the feminine part, Wilfrid alluded to her flight from Richford, with the instinct to sting his heart by a revival of his jealous sensations previously experienced, and so taste the luxury of present satisfaction.

“Why did you run away from me?” he said, semi-reproachfully.

“I promised.”

“Would you not break a promise to stay with me?”

“Now I would!”

“You promised Captain Gambier?”

“No:  those poor people.”

“You are sorry that you went?”

No:  she was happy.

“You have lost your harp by it,” said Wilfrid.

“What do you think of me for not guessing—­not knowing who sent it?” she returned.  “I feel guilty of something all those days that I touched it, not thinking of you.  Wicked, filthy little creature that I was!  I despise ungrateful girls.”