"You have some skill as a pleader, Dick. But I am thinking at this moment what it is you hope to gain by bringing me to a sense of my own iniquity in listening for an hour or two every day to the fiddling of a youth who is fresh and natural and a genius to boot."
"Yes. I take it for granted that the eldest sister of the genius implored of you to come to me: you would not be such a fool as to come of your own accord. You know too much of the nature of women, Dick, to believe that one would relinquish even the youngest and most innocent of her adorers just when she had the satisfaction of learning that she was looked on as dangerous--so few women attain the distinction of being thought dangerous, though most of them aim at it."
Dick laughed approvingly; he felt that it would never do for him to neglect any of the conciliatory arts of the pleader.
"Tom is, as you say, young and innocent, Mrs. Abington," he said indulgently. "That is why I offer to you the parable of the fisherman. A good fisherman--one who fishes for sport and not for the fish-kettle--never fails to take the hook out of the jaws of a young and innocent fish, and to send it back to its sorrowing relations."
"Faith, 'tis a pretty parable, Dick," said she. "But how if your fisherman has been angling all the day for a fish on which he has set his heart? Failing to catch it, is he to be greatly blamed if he retain the little one which he has hooked, and try to make the most of it, dangling it at the end of the line before the onlookers?"
"Nay. When he has in his basket all the fish that swim in the river--when he----"
"Dick Sheridan," whispered the actress, going close to him and putting her face closer still,--"Dick Sheridan, I will let Tom Linley go down the stream if you will take his place."
He started back and felt himself flushing all over--the woman had revealed herself; and she too was flushing through the force of her revelation.
They stood there looking at each other, separated by only a few feet. Some moments had passed before he said:
"Ah, you were born a coquette! Dangerous--you were born dangerous, you beautiful creature! You would lure me on to make a fool of myself. Nay, seriously, my dear madam----"