"Miss Fane----" began Janet in a very small voice.
"I'll never see Nellie Fane again if she robs me of you," Dale declared with great energy, and probably perfect, though unintentional, untruth.
Janet looked up and met his eyes. Then she dropped hers, and said, in tones quite unlike those of distant civility:
"I wonder how you care for such a mean-spirited creature as I am. If I told you I loved you still--how could you believe me? I told you before, and then I----"
"Oh, no, no. It was a lie when I said----"
"Tell me another, then," said Dale. "I like them."
Janet's resistance, like Bob Acres' courage, was oozing out of her finger tips.
"I know what it will be," she faltered plaintively. "You'll always be thinking about her, and so shall I--and it will be horrible. No, I won't do it. I have some resolution, Dale; it wasn't mere nonsense. I did mean it."
"Oh, no," said Dale persuasively; "you never did, Jan. You had no idea how bored you would be without me. Now, had you?"
"It's quite unnecessary, dear; I'll do all that."
"Are you really quite--quite sure, Dale, that you will never----"
"Oh, hang it all!" said Dale, and he kissed her.
Dale shut it, and the rest of the conversation became inaudible, and remains unknown.
The guests had gone. Mrs. Hodge and Nellie, who were to keep the Colonel company for a little while, had walked down to Denborough to tell Mrs. Roberts all about the event of the day; and the Colonel was bustling about, getting the presents packed up, and counting, with some surprise, the empty champagne bottles. He was thus engaged when the door of the little room opened, to let Janet and Dale out.
"Dear me! I thought you'd gone. Nellie asked me, and I told her so."
"I am just going, Colonel Smith," said Janet.
"There's another man going to lose his daughter," he said. "By Jove, I thought it was to be Nellie Fane!"
When Janet left Dale at the Grange gates, she went to her father's study.
"Lord, child," said the Squire, "are you only just back?"
"Your mother did that, and she's been back two hours. She couldn't find you."
"Papa," said Janet, sitting on the arm of his chair, "I'm very much ashamed of myself."
"What have you been, doing now? Ill treating that poor young man again?"