"Look here, my boy, it is time you went away," said my uncle.
I rose; I could scarcely resist a desire to kiss the hand of the lady in
pink, but I felt that to do so would require as much audacity as a
forcible abduction of her. My heart beat loud while I counted out to
myself "Shall I do it, shall I not?" and then I ceased to ask myself what
I ought to do so as at least to do something. Blindly, hotly, madly,
flinging aside all the reasons I had just found to support such action, I
seized and raised to my lips the hand she held out to me.
"Isn't he delicious! Quite a ladies' man already; he takes after his
uncle. He'll be a perfect 'gentleman,'" she went on, setting her teeth so
as to give the word a kind of English accentuation. "Couldn't he come to
me some day for 'a cup of tea,' as our friends across the channel say; he
need only send me a 'blue' in the morning?"
I had not the least idea of what a 'blue' might be. I did not understand
half the words which the lady used, but my fear lest there should be
concealed in them some question which it would be impolite in me not to
answer kept me from withdrawing my close attention from them, and I was
beginning to feel extremely tired.
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