“Why, no, pet.”  He made answer with a fond familiarity he would scarcely have used if they had been alone instead of in a crowded drawing-room, touching her cheek playfully with his fingers as he spoke.  “Not now.  We’ll reserve that pleasure for another time.  This is good enough for me;” and he swung his arms around and gave a little whoop like an excited rowdy.

A deep crimson dyed for a moment the face of Blanche.  In a moment afterward it was pale as ashes.  Whitford saw the death-like change, and it partially roused him to a sense of his condition.

“Of course I’ll go to the library if your heart’s set on it,” he said, drawing her arm in his and taking her out of the room with a kind of flourish.  Many eyes turned on them.  In some was surprise, in some merriment and in some sorrow and pain.

“Now for the books,” he cried as he placed Blanche in a large chair at the library-table.  “Where are they?”

Self-control has a masterful energy when the demand for its exercise is imperative.  The paleness went out of Blanche’s face, and a tender light came into her eyes as she looked up at Whitford and smiled on him with loving glances.

“Sit down,” she said in a firm, low, gentle voice.

The young man felt the force of her will and sat down by her side, close to the table, on which a number of books were lying.

“I want to show you Dore’s illustrations of Don Quixote;” and Blanche opened a large folio volume.

Whitford had grown more passive.  He was having a confused impression that all was not just right with him, and that it was better to be in the library looking over books and pictures with Blanche than in the crowded parlors, where there was so much to excite his gayer feelings.  So he gave himself up to the will of his betrothed, and tried to feel an interest in the pictures she seemed to admire so much.

They had been so engaged for over twenty minutes, Whitford beginning to grow dull and heavy as the exhilaration of wine died out, and less responsive to the efforts made by Blanche to keep him interested, when Lovering came into the library, and, seeing them, said, with a spur of banter in his voice: 

“Come, come, this will never do!  You’re a fine fellow, Whitford, and I don’t wonder that Miss Birtwell tolerates you, but monopoly is not the word to-night.  I claim the privilege of a guest and a word or two with our fair hostess.”

And he held out his arm to Blanche, who had risen from the table.  She could do no less than take it.  He drew her from the room.  As they passed out of the door Blanche cast a look back at Whitford.  Those who saw it were struck by its deep concern.