Now he felt that he had been guilty of the rashest folly in thus deliberately reopening the wound. He could little enough afford to give fresh cause of complaint, and yet in his blindness that was precisely what he had done!
“Nothing,” he replied, to Sybil’s last question; “that is, I was thinking of the portrait at the moment.”
“Oh, Ronald!” she cried, “is there something worse to be told yet? Is that rejected too?”
He smiled at her naïve anxiety. “Oh, no,” he said, “that’s all right — in fact, I believe it has one of the best places.”
“How you frightened me; but something is worrying you, I’m sure.”
“I was thinking,” he said slowly, “that it might be better if you could persuade your aunt not to go to the Grosvernor tomorrow.”
“Not, Ronald!” she exclaimed; “but of course we shall g
