"You were laughing at me all the time; if proof of it were
needed, you have given it now by coming here to mock me. I thought I
was stronger than you, but I was ludicrously mistaken, and you taught
me a lesson I richly deserved; you did me good, and I thank you for
it. Believe me, Lady Pippinworth, when I say that I admit my
discomfiture, and remain your very humble and humbled servant."
Now was not that good of Tommy? You would think it still better were I
to tell you what part of his person she was looking at while he said
it.
He held out his hand generously (there was no noble act he could not
have performed for her just now), but, whatever her Ladyship wanted,
it was not to say good-bye. "Do you mean that you never cared for me?"
she asked, with the tremor that always made Tommy kind.
"Never cared for you!" he exclaimed fervently. "What were you not to
me in those golden days!" It was really a magnanimous cry, meant to
help her self-respect, nothing more; but it alarmed the good in him,
and he said sternly: "But of course that is all over now. It is only a
sweet memory," he added, to make these two remarks mix.
The sentiment of this was so agreeable to him that he was half
thinking of raising her hand chivalrously to his lips when Lady
Pippinworth said:
"But if it is all over now, why have you still to walk me off?"
"Have you never had to walk me off?" said Tommy, forgetting himself,
and, to his surprise, she answered, "Yes.
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