"Sit so with Bertie!" she repeated. "How do I sit with Bertie? Have I done anything I ought not? Or—tell me, Frank, are you so horribly jealous?"
He clasped her closer, and, kissing her hair, he muttered: "Yes, yes! I am jealous."
"But of Bertie—your best friend, who lives with you? You can not surely be jealous of him!"
She burst out laughing, and, carried away by her own mirth, fairly shook as she sat there, on his knee, with her head against his shoulder.
"Of Bertie!" she said, still gasping. "How is it possible? Oh, oh, of Bertie! But I only think of him as a pretty boy, almost a girl. He is so tiny, and has such neat little hands. Oh, oh! What! jealous of Bertie?"
"Do not laugh so!" he said, with a frown. "I really mean it—you are so familiar with him—"
"But he is your dearest friend!"
"Yes, so he may be—but yet—"
She began again to laugh; she thought him most amusing; and at the same time she loved him all the better for being so sullen and jealous.
"Silly fellow!" she said, and her fingers played with his fair, golden-tinted mustache. "How foolish—oh! how foolish you are!"
"But promise me—" he began again.
"Of course, if it will make your mind easy, I shall keep more at a distance. But I shall find it very difficult, for I am so accustomed to Bertie. And Bertie must not be allowed to guess it; thus your friendship will remain unbroken, I must still be good friends with him. No, no! I tell you I must be kind to him. Foolish boy that you are! I never knew that you could be so silly!" And she laughed again very heartily, shaking his head in her engaging merriment, and tousling his thick hair with her two little hands.
CHAPTER XII
Frank had of late begun to think of Bertie as an intolerable burden. Though he himself did not understand why, he could not bear to see Eva and his friend together, and their intimacy brought this about almost every day. Eva had rightly perceived that she could hardly behave to Bertie otherwise than she had done hitherto. Meanwhile he had to put up with great coolness from Frank. After one of his escapades, which had lasted three days, this coolness was very conspicuous. Westhove, who usually made very pressing inquiries on his return from these mysterious absences, on this occasion said not a word. And Bertie vowed to himself that this should be the last of these disappearances.
But then came the discussion, which Van Maeren had so greatly dreaded; in a confidential moment his friend spoke of his impending marriage, and asked Bertie what plans he had for the future.
"For you know, dear old fellow," was Frank's kind way of putting it, "that I will with pleasure do my best to help you. Here, or in Holland, I have a few connections. And so long as you have nothing, of course I shall not leave you out in the cold; on that you may safely reckon. But I shall be leaving White-Rose Cottage: Eva thinks it too much out of the way, and, as you know, prefers Kensington. But we have had good times together, haven't we?"
And he clapped Bertie on the shoulder, grateful for the life of good-fellowship they had enjoyed within those walls, and feeling a little compassion for the poor youth who took so kindly to the good gifts of wealth, and who had, alas! no wealth to procure them with. However, he penetrated no further into Bertie's state of mind; he had always had a turn for a Bohemian existence: he had known luxury after living in misery; now life must be a little less easy for him again. That was all.
Bertie, on his part, horrified by the heartless villainy of his first reflections, allowed himself to slide on day by day, with no further thought of his various plots. He sometimes even had a naive belief that at the last moment fortune would look on him with favor: his Fatalism was like a form of worship, giving him strength and hope.
However, a moment came when he thought all hope lost; the danger was pressing and imminent.
"Bertie," said Westhove, who had just come home in some excitement, "to-morrow you can find some employment to suit you, I think. Tayle —you know, our friend at the club—tells me that he wants to find a secretary for his father, Lord Tayle. The old man lives on his place, up in Northumberland; he is always ailing, and sometimes tiresome, still, it seems to me that you will not easily get such another chance. You will have a salary of eighty pounds, and live in the house of course. I should have spoken of you to Tayle at once, but that you begged me long ago—"
"Then you did not mention my name?" said Bertie, hastily and almost offended.
“No," replied Frank, surprised at his tone. ''I could make no overtures till I had spoken to you. But make up your mind at once, for Tayle has two other men in his eye already. If you can decide at once I will go back to Tayle this minute: my cab is waiting." And he took up his hat.
Eighty pounds, and a position as secretary, with free quarters at the Castle! How the splendor of such an offer would have dazzled Bertie not so very long since, in America. But now—
"My dear Frank," he said, very coldly, "I am very much obliged for your kind intentions, but, pray, take no trouble on my account. I can not accept the place. Dismiss your
