"How do you do, Mr. Ducie?" she said. "It is quite an age since I have seen you!" "I have much to tell you, Miss Gilchrist," I replied. "May I sit down?" For the artful girl, by sitting near the door, and the judicious use of her shawl, had contrived to keep a chair empty by her side. She made room for me as a matter of course, and the youths had the discretion to melt before us. As soon as I was once seated her fan flew out, and she whispered behind it-- "Are you mad?" "Madly in love," I replied; "but in no other sense." "I have no patience! You cannot understand what I am suffering!" she said. "What are you to say to Ronald, to Major Chevenix, to my aunt?" "Your aunt?" I cried, with a start. "_Peccavi_! is she here?" "She is in the card-room at whist," said Flora. "Where she will probably stay all the evening?" I suggested. "She may," she admitted; "she generally does!" "Well, then, I must avoid the card-room," said I, "which is very much what I had counted upon doing. I did not come here to play cards, but to contemplate a certain young lady to my heart's content--if it can ever be contented!--and to tell her some good news." "But there are still Ronald and the Major!" she persisted. "They are not card-room fixtures! Ronald will be coming and going. And as for Mr. Chevenix, he----" "Always sits with Miss Flora?" I interrupted. "And they talk of poor St. Ives? I had gathered as much, my dear; and Mr. Ducie has come to prevent it! But pray dismiss these fears! I mind no one but your aunt." "Why my aunt?" "Because your aunt is a lady, my dear, and a very clever lady, and, like all clever ladies, a very rash lady," said I. "You can never count upon them, unless you are sure of getting them in a corner, as I have got you, and talking them over rationally, as I am just engaged on with yourself! It would be quite the same to your aunt to make the worst kind of a scandal, with an equal indifference to my danger and to the feelings of our good host!" "Well," she said, "and what of Ronald, then? Do you think _he_ is above making a scandal? You must know him very little!" "On the other hand, it is my pretension that I know him very well!" I replied. "I must speak to Ronald first--not Ronald to me--that is all!" "Then, please, go and speak to him at once!" she pleaded. "He is there--do you see?--at the upper end of the room, talking to that girl in pink." "And so lose this seat before I have told you my good news?" I exclaimed. "Catch me! And, besides, my dear one, think a little of me and my good news! I thought the bearer of good news was always welcome! I hoped he might be a little welcome for himself! Consider! I have but one friend; and let me stay by her! And there is only one thing I care to hear; and let me hear it!" "O Anne," she sighed, "if I did not love you, why should I be so uneasy? I am turned into a coward, dear! Think, if it were the other way round--if you were quite safe and I was in, O, such danger!"