Her eyes rested on him lovingly, and there was that in the half-parted
lips which compelled him to rise on his elbow and kiss them.
"And yet you could have married Lady Luce," she said, not reproachfully,
but very gravely. "Did you not think of her, Drake?"
"No," he replied gravely. "I gave no thought to her until I came home
and saw her. And it was not for love of her that I should have married
her, Nell, but in sheer desperation. You see, it did not matter to me
whom I married if I could not have you."
"And yet--ah, how hard love is!--she cares for you, Drake! I have seen
her--I saw her on the terrace, I saw her at the ball here."
He laughed half bitterly.
"My dear Nell, don't let that idea worry you. There is nothing in it; it
is quite a mistaken one. Luce is a charming woman, the most finished
product of this fin de siècle life----"
"She is very beautiful," Nell said, just even to her rival.
"I'll grant it, though compared to a certain violet-eyed girl I
know----"
Nell put her hand over his lips; and he kissed it, and went on gravely.
"No, it is not given to Luce to love any one but herself. She and her
kind worship the Golden Image which we set up at every street corner.
Rank, wealth, the notoriety that is paragraphed in the society papers,
those are what Luce worships, and marries for. By the accident of birth
I represent most of these things, and so----"
He shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
"And now chance has helped me again, for her father has inherited the
Marquisate of Buckleigh, and he will be rich. It is likely enough that
she would have jilted me again."
"But you were not engaged to her?" said Nell, drawing her hand from his
head, where it had rested lightly.
"No," he said. "But I should have been, and she knows it. The whole
truth, dearest! No, I am free, thank God! Free to win back my old
love."
Nell drew a sigh of relief, and her hand stole back to him.
"She will let me go calmly and easily enough. There are at least two
marriageable dukes in the market, and Luce----"
"Ah, Drake, I do not like to hear you speak so harshly--even of her."
"Forgive me, Nell. You are right," he said penitently. "But I can't
forget that by her play acting on the terrace that night she nearly
robbed me of you forever, and caused both of us months of misery. I
can't forget that."