not convenient to have me now?”
“Convenient!” cried the young man; “how is such a word to be applied to you? It could never be but a delight to all of us——”
“Oh, hush, hush,” said Kate; “don’t pay me any compliments. You know I am only a stranger, though somehow I feel as if you all belonged to me. It is because your mother has been so kind; and then—you saved my life.”
“That was nothing,” cried John; “I wish it had cost{88} me something, then I might have felt as if I deserved——”
{88}
“What? my thanks?” she said, softly, playing with him.
“No, but to have saved you—for I did save you; though it did not cost me anything,” he said, regretfully; “and that is what I shall grudge all my life.”
“How very droll you are!” said Kate, after a long look at him, in which she tried to fathom what he meant without succeeding; “but never mind what it cost you. My opinion is, that, after such a thing as that, people become a sort of relations—don’t you think so? and you are bound to tell me when I ask you. Please, Mr John, is it convenient for your mother to have me now?—should I stay now? I shall be guided by what you say.”
He gave an abrupt idiotic laugh, and got up and walked about the room. “Of course you must stay,” he said; “of course it is convenient. What could it be else? It would be cruel to leave us so abruptly, after all.”
“Well, I am very comfortable,” said Kate; “I shall like it. The only thing was for your mother. If she should not want me to {89}stay—but anyhow, the responsibility is upon you now; and so, as Dr Mitford says, as we have settled that, tell me what we are going to do.”
{89}
“To do?” said John, with open eyes.
“To amuse ourselves,” said Kate; “for I am a stranger, you know. How can I tell how you amuse yourselves in this house?”
“We don’t amuse ourselves at all,” said John; and as he had been coming nearer and nearer, now he drew a chair close to her sofa, and sat down and gazed at her with a new light in his face. He laughed, and yet his eyes glowed with a serious fire. He was amused and surprised, and yet the serious nature underneath gave a certain meaning to everything. He took the remark not as the natural expression of a frivolous, amusement-loving creature, but
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