"
"Oh, don't you; but I do--you might be wanting to eat me."
Teddy threw a look intended to convey that he could conceive no more
delicious morsel.
"There there, say good-bye and go away, do!" she cried. "I declare
you're beginning to get cannibalish already."
And in spite of all further entreaties and a goodly show of ill-humour,
which experience had taught him to keep handy for display, Teddy was
forced to obey her command that he should take his departure.
"I must take care not to let that boy go too far," Nina reflected when
he had gone. "He wants his paces pulled up now and then, or else he'll
get trying to kick over. However, it's only for a day or two, and then I
shall be off; and by next season--Oh, he'll have forgotten me, I
daresay."
She did not "daresay" anything of the sort--there was a deal too much
vanity in her composition to willingly give up any homage that had once
been offered to her; but the supposition served as a salve for her
conscience, which in the matter was not altogether easy, for in her
letters to Rowley, and she wrote to him every day, she had never said a
single syllable of having seen Teddy. It was not that she had any wish
to be sly with him; but, reasoning in her own way--what good was there
in telling any one things which would make them uneasy, and Rowley was
such a good fellow, so wrapt up in and devoted to her,--he'd be wretched
if she told him that Teddy was in town and came to see her every day.
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