He rallied at last under all these cheering suggestions, and gradually dropped into that talk so fascinating to Promessi Sposi in which affection and worldliness are blended together, and where the feelings of the heart and the furniture of the drawing-room divide the interest between them. There was a dash of romance, too, in the notion of life in the far East--some far-away home in the Neilgherries, some lone bungalow on the Sutlej--that helped them to paint their distant landscape with more effect, and they sat, in imagination, under a spreading plantain on the Himalaya, and watched the blood-red sunsets over the plains of Hindostan. “Time passed very rapidly in this fashion. Love is the very sublime of egotism, and people never weary of themselves. The last evening--sad things these last evenings--came, and they strolled out to take a last look on the lake and the snow-white Alps beyond it. The painful feeling of having so short a time to say so much was over each of them, and made them more silent than usual. As they thus loitered along, they reached a spot where a large evergreen oak stood alone, spreading its gigantic arms over the water, and from which the view of the lake extended for miles in each direction.
“This is the spot to have a summer-house, Florry,” said Loyd; “and when I come back I’ll build one here.”
“You see there is a rustic bench here already. Harry made it.”
Scarcely were the words uttered than she felt het cheek burning, and the tingling rush of her blood to her temples.
“Harry means Mr. Calvert, I conclude?” said he, coldly.
“It was a name I have never uttered since I passed this threshold, Florry, and I vowed to myself that I would not be the first to allude to it My pledge, however, went no further, and I am now released from its obligation. Let us talk of him freely.”
“No, Joseph, I had rather not. When he was leaving this, it was his last wish that his name was not to be uttered here. We gave him our solemn promise, and I feel sure you will not ask me to forget it.”
“I have no means of knowing by what right he could pretend to exact such a promise, which, to say the least, is a very unusual one.”
“There was no question of a right in the matter. Mr. Calvert was here as our friend, associating with us in close intimacy, enjoying our friendship and out confidence, and if he had reasons of his own for the request, they were enough for us.”