"Do you?" murmured Miss Graham; and then she stopped suddenly, looking
downward, with one of those conscious blushes which were always at her
command.
There was a pause. Douglas Dale stood by the music-stand, listlessly
turning over a volume of songs.
Lydia was the first to break the silence.
"Why did you not come to see us sooner, Mr. Dale?" she asked. "You
promised me you would come."
"I have been too much engaged to come," answered Douglas.
This reply sounded almost rude; but to Lydia this unpolished manner
seemed only the result of extreme shyness, and, indeed, embarrassment,
which to her appeared proof positive of her intended victim's
enthralment.
Her eyes grew bright with a glance of triumph.
"I shall win," she thought to herself; "I shall win."
"Have you really wished to see me?" asked Douglas, after another pause.
"I did indeed wish to see you," she murmured, in tremulous tones.
"Indeed!" said Douglas, in a tone that might mean astonishment,
delight, or anything else. "Well, Miss Graham, that was very kind of
you. I go out very little, and never except to the houses of intimate
friends."
"Surely you number us--my brother, I mean--among that privileged
class," said Lydia, once more blushing bewitchingly.
"I do, indeed," said Douglas Dale, in a candid, kind, unembarrassed
tone, which, if she had been a little less under the dominion of that
proverbially blinding quality, vanity, would have been the most
discouraging of all possible tones, to the schemes which she had
formed; "I never forget how high you stood in my poor brother's esteem,
Miss Graham; indeed, if you will pardon my saying so, I thought there
was a much warmer feeling than that, on his part.
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