FullReads

“I come as a man of business besides, and men of business are accustomed to being kept waiting,” he went on.

“You are really very good, Sir Eustace, to take so much trouble about my affairs.”

“It is a pleasure, Lady Croston.”

“Ah, Sir Eustace, you do not expect me to believe that,” laughed the radiant creature at his side. “But if you only knew how I detest lawyers, and what you spare me by the trouble you take, I am sure you would not grudge me your time.”

“Do not talk of it, Lady Croston. I would do a great deal more than that for you; in fact,” here he dropped his voice a little, “there are few things that I would not do for you, Madeline.”

She raised her delicate eyebrows till they looked like notes of interrogation, and blushed a little. This was quite a new style for Sir Eustace. Was he in earnest? she wondered. Impossible!

“And now for business,” he continued; “not that there is much business; as I understand it, you have only to sign this document, which I have already witnessed, and the stock can be transferred.”

She signed the paper which he had brought in a big envelope almost without looking at it, for she was thinking of Sir Eustace’s remark, and he put it back in the envelope.

“Is that all the business, Sir Eustace?” she asked.

“Yes; quite all. Now I suppose that as I have done my duty I had better go away.”

“I wish to Heaven he would!” groaned Bottles to himself behind the curtains. He did not like his brother’s affectionate little ways or Madeline’s tolerance of them.

“Indeed, no; you had better sit down and talk to me–that is, if you have got nothing pleasanter to do.”

We can guess Sir Eustace’s prompt reply and Madeline’s smiling reception of the compliment, as she seated herself in a low chair–that same low chair she had occupied the day before.

“Now for it,” said Sir Eustace to himself. “I wonder how George is getting on?”

“My brother tells me that he came to see you yesterday,” he began.

“Yes,” she answered, smiling again, but wondering in her heart how much he had told him.

“Do you find him much changed?”

“Not much.”

“You used to be very fond of each other once, if I remember right?” said he.

“Yes, once.”

“I often think how curious it is,” went on Sir Eustace in a reflective tone, “to watch the various changes time brings about, especially where the affections are concerned. One sees children at the seaside making little mounds of sand, and they think, if they are very young children, that they will find them there to-morrow. But they reckon without their tide. To-morrow the sands will have swept as level as ever, and the little boys will have to begin again. It is like that with our youthful love affairs, is it not? The tide of time comes up and sweeps them away, fortunately for ourselves. Now in your case, for instance, it is, I think, a happy thing for both of you that your sandhouse did not last. Is it not?”

Madeline sighed softly. “Yes, I suppose so,” she answered.

Bottles, behind the curtains, rapidly reviewed the past, and came to a different conclusion.

“Well, that is all done with,” said Sir Eustace cheerfully.

Madeline did not contradict him; she did not see her way to doing so just at present.

Then came a pause.

“Madeline,” said Sir Eustace presently, in a changed voice, “I have something to say to you.”

“Indeed, Sir Eustace,” she answered, lifting her eyebrows again in her note of interrogation manner, “what is it?”

“It is this, Madeline–I want to ask you to be my wife.”

The blue velvet curtains suddenly gave a jump as though they were assisting at at spiritualistic seance.

Sir Eustace looked at the curtains with warning in his eye.

Madeline saw nothing.

“Really, Sir Eustace!”

“I dare say I surprise you,” went on this ardent lover; “my suit may seem a sudden one, but in truth it is nothing of the sort.”