'Pray, of what were you thinking behind that gloomy face?'
'Are they so very, very dreadful, that when you think of them you must look like a bankrupt gambler coming from the gaming-table?'
'No. They are considered good-looking. Miss Gordon--'
'What you were going to say. I saw it on your face, and you have promised not to speak of the matter for a month. I want to talk to you about your sisters. Are they like you?'
'Ah, my age! And what is your other sister like?'
The girl paused awhile and kept her eyes fixed on the table. She raised her finger for his attention, and said, 'I shall be a month in London. I don't like any of the women at Mrs Barclay's. I am not likely to like any of them. The probability is, no chance arrival will be better than the set now there. Write to-night and ask your sister Kate up for a month.' She raised her eyes to his and looked into his face.
He was in dismay. 'She--she would not come!' he cried hastily.
'I know she would not come. She has been more home-staying than I.'
'All the more reason why she should come up now. You don't intend keeping her in a place like Stratford all her life?'
'There would not be the least use in my asking her.'
'Then I will write to-night to her, asking her to come up and stay with me.'
'You, Miss Gordon! You! You would not dream of doing such a thing!' cried Osborne, in terror.
'I'm not a poet, and I never dream except in sleep. If you will not write for your sister to-night, I will.'
'But what would she think of it? She would not come. Of course she would not leave home.'
'I shall try. Once I have fully decided upon anything I never bother about detail.'
'If you do this I should be greatly displeased; I, who want to be so close a friend of yours.'
'Then why do you refuse so small a favour? It is my _first_ request.' She uttered the latter sentence with her eyes turned into his, and all the beauty of her face gathered into a smile for him. She laid an emphasis on the word _first_. Oh, delicious significance of that emphasis! It meant that other requests were to follow. Requests of her to him now would mean hope. Think of having the right to hold her for ever to his breast. What a hope! She was giving him encouragement. There could be no doubt that, by asking him for favours and wishing to know his sister, she did not intend to treat his suit lightly. If he finally declined to write, and she wrote, his mother and sisters would not hear her name mentioned again; they would be cruelly shocked. What had he been thinking a while ago about his sisters and her? Never mind now. Who could look at that face and see that smile and hear that voice asking for a _first_ favour and deny it? He spoke,--