"
"Humph!" said her father. "Does Rose know that you were awake?"
"No, I have not broached the topic to her," replied Eva, with an
affectation of maturer speech.
"Humph!" said the gentleman again; a quizzical glance at his younger
daughter breaking for a moment through the gloom with which he was
meditating the fate of the elder one. "Well, I am glad you 'broached'
it to me; I shall--"
"Papa," interrupted Eva, with bated breath, glancing down from the
window at which she stood, "there is Allan now."
"_Allan_! You are mightily well acquainted. I see I must prepare to
make an unconditional surrender."
He walked in a nervous and disquieted manner out of the room. At the
head of the stairs he encountered Mademoiselle DeBerczy, on her way
up.
"Helene," he said, with the desperation of one who in the fifty-ninth
minute after the eleventh hour does not entirely despair of a gleam of
hope, "I wish you would tell me in two words if Rose loves Allan
Dunlop. Does she?"
"_Don't_ she!" exclaimed Helene, with explosive earnestness, and the
two words were sufficient. Their effect was not lessened by subsequent
occurrences.
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