"'Her face is as the summer cloud, whereon The dawning sun delights to rest his rays.'
"Play at hide-and-seek amid her golden hairs.'"
"Dorian, don't--don't make her unhappy," says Clarissa, blushing hotly.
"I wish I could," says Dorian. He laughs as he speaks, but there is truth hidden in his jesting tone. Oh, to make her feel something,--that cold indifferent child!
"No, no. I am in earnest," says Clarissa, a little anxiously. "Don't pay her too much attention, if you don't mean it."
"She is very young,"--ignoring his last speech altogether. "She is a perfect baby in some ways. It isn't kind of you, I think."
"My dear child, what am I doing? If I hand Miss Broughton a chair, or ask her if she would like another cup of tea, is that 'making her unhappy'? I really begin to think society is too moral for me. I shall give it up, and betake myself to Salt Lake City."
"You won't understand me," begins she, sitting more upright, as though desirous of argument; but he interrupts her.
"There you mistake me," he says. "My motives are quite pure. I am dying to understand you, only I can't. If you would try to be a little more lucid, all would be well; but why I am to be sat upon, and generally maltreated, because I walked a mile or so with a friend of yours, is more than I can grasp."
"I don't want to sit upon you," says Clarissa a little vexed.
"No! I dare say that chair is more comfortable."
"I don't want anything; I merely ask you to be careful. She is very young, and has seen few men; and if you persist in your attentions she may fall in love with you."
"I wish to goodness she would," says Branscombe; and then something in his own mind strikes him, and he leans back in his chair, and laughs aloud. There is, perhaps, more bitterness than mirth in his laugh; yet Miss Peyton hears only the mirth.
"I hope she won't," she says, severely. "Nothing would cause me greater sorrow. Underneath her childish manner there lies a passionate amount of feeling that, once called into play, would be impossible to check. Amuse yourself elsewhere, Dorian, unless you mean to marry her."
"Well, why shouldn't I marry her?" says Dorian.
"I see no reason why you shouldn't. I only know you have no intention whatever of doing so."