She had run up in her bedgown to his door to call him as usual; then had gone back to dress and call the others; and in ten minutes was walking to the head of the stairs with the candle in her hand. At the same moment he came down his steps from above in his shirtsleeves and put his arm across the stairway.
“Now, Miss Flirt, before you go down,” he said peremptorily. “It is a fortnight since I spoke, and this won’t do any longer. You must tell me what you mean, or I shall have to leave this house. My door was ajar just now, and I saw you. For your own safety I must go. You don’t know. Well? Is it to be yes at last?”
“I am only just up, Mr. Clare, and it is too early to take me to task!” she pouted. “You need not call me Flirt. ’Tis cruel and untrue. Wait till by and by. Please wait till by and by! I will really think seriously about it between now and then. Let me go downstairs!”
She looked a little like what he said she was as, holding the candle sideways, she tried to smile away the seriousness of her words.
“Call me Angel, then, and not Mr. Clare.”
“Angel.”
“Angel dearest—why not?”
“ ’Twould mean that I agree, wouldn’t it?”
“It would only mean that you love me, even if you cannot marry me; and you were so good as to own that long ago.”
“Very well, then, ‘Angel dearest,’ if I must ,” she murmured, looking at her candle, a roguish curl coming upon her mouth, notwithstanding her suspense.