Laura's confusion was very, pretty. She tried to hide it, but the more she tried the more manifest it became and withal the more captivating to look upon. Presently she threw the spray of box from her with an annoyed air, and said:
"I forgot myself. I have been very foolish. I beg that you will forget this absurd thing."
Mr. Buckstone picked up the spray, and sitting down by Laura's side on the sofa, said:
"Please let me keep it, Miss Hawkins. I set a very high value upon it now."
"Give it to me, Mr. Buckstone, and do not speak so. I have been sufficiently punished for my thoughtlessness. You cannot take pleasure in adding to my distress. Please give it to me."
"Indeed I do not wish to distress you. But do not consider the matter so gravely; you have done yourself no wrong. You probably forgot that you had it; but if you had given it to me I would have kept it--and not forgotten it."
"Do not talk so, Mr. Buckstone. Give it to me, please, and forget the matter."
"It would not be kind to refuse, since it troubles you so, and so I restore it. But if you would give me part of it and keep the rest--"
"So that you might have something to remind you of me when you wished to laugh at my foolishness?"
"Oh, by no means, no! Simply that I might remember that I had once assisted to discomfort you, and be reminded to do so no more."
Laura looked up, and scanned his face a moment. She was about to break the twig, but she hesitated and said:
"If I were sure that you-- "She threw the spray away, and continued:
"This is silly! We will change the subject. No, do not insist--I must have my way in this."
Then Mr. Buckstone drew off his forces and proceeded to make a wily advance upon the fortress under cover of carefully--contrived artifices and stratagems of war. But he contended with an alert and suspicious enemy; and so at the end of two hours it was manifest to him that he had made but little progress. Still, he had made some; he was sure of that.
Laura sat alone and communed with herself;"He is fairly hooked, poor thing. I can play him at my leisure and land him when I choose. He was all ready to be caught, days and days ago--I saw that, very well. He will vote for our bill--no fear about that;and moreover he will work for it, too, before I am done with him. If he had a woman's eyes he would have noticed that the spray of box had grown three inches since he first gave it to me, but a man never sees anything and never suspects. If I had shown him a whole bush he would have thought it was the same. Well, it is a good night's work: the committee is safe. But this is a desperate game I am playing in these days--a wearing, sordid, heartless game. If I lose, I lose everything--even myself. And if I win the game, will it be worth its cost after all?
I do not know. Sometimes I doubt. Sometimes I half wish I had not begun. But no matter; I have begun, and I will never turn back; never while I live."
Mr. Buckstone indulged in a reverie as he walked homeward:
"She is shrewd and deep, and plays her cards with considerable discretion--but she will lose, for all that. There is no hurry; I shall come out winner, all in good time. She is the most beautiful woman in the world; and she surpassed herself to-night. I suppose I must vote for that bill, in the end maybe; but that is not a matter of much consequence the government can stand it. She is bent on capturing me, that is plain;but she will find by and by that what she took for a sleeping garrison was an ambuscade."