Barnes. Will that appease your wrath?"
He flushed. "I'm sorry I--"
"See," she said, "it is nicely bandaged,--and if you could see through
the bandages you would find it dreadfully swollen. That nice Miss
Thackeray doctored me. What a quaint person she is."
His brow clouded once more. "I hope you will feel able to leave this
place to-morrow, Countess. We must get away almost immediately."
"Ah, you have been listening to O'Dowd, I see."
"Yes. He tells me it will be dangerous to--"
"I was thinking of something else that he must have told you. You
forgot to address me as Miss Cameron."
"I might have gone even farther and called you the Countess Ted," he
said.
She sighed. "It was rather nice being Miss Cameron to you, Mr. Barnes.
You will not let it make any difference, will you? I mean to say, you
will be just the same as if I were still Miss Cameron and not--some
one else?"
"I will be just the same," he said, leaning a little closer. "I am not
so easily frightened as all that, you know."
She looked into his eyes for a moment, and then turned her own swiftly
away. Entranced, he watched the delicate colour steal into her cheek.
"You are just like other women," he said thickly, "and I am like other
men.
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