"How do you know he is?" Peter asked, thinking to create a

diversion, "Of course, he is. He must be. No one but a gentleman could

have had such an experience, could have written such a book.

And besides, he's a friend of yours. Of course he's a

gentleman," returned the adroit Duchessa.

"But there are degrees of gentleness, I believe," said Peter.

"She was at the topmost top. He--well, at all events, he knew

his place. He had too much humour, too just a sense of

proportion, to contemplate offering her his hand."

"A gentleman can offer his hand to any woman--under royalty,"

said the Duchessa.

"He can, to be sure--and he can also see it declined with

thanks," Peter answered. "But it wasn't merely her rank. She

was horribly rich, besides. And then--and then--! There were

ten thousand other impediments. But the chief of them all, I

daresay, was Wildmay's fear lest an avowal of his attachment

should lead to his exile from her presence--and he naturally

did not wish to be exiled."

"Faint heart!" the Duchessa said. "He ought to have told her.

The case was peculiar, was unique. Ordinary rules could n't

apply to it. And how could he be sure, after all, that she

would n't have despised the conventional barriers, as you call

them? Every man gets the wife he deserves--and certainly he

had gone a long way towards deserving her. She could n't have

felt quite indifferent to him--if he had told her; quite

indifferent to the man who had drawn that magnificent Pauline

from his vision of her. No woman could be entirely proof

against a compliment like that. And I insist that it was her

right to know. He should simply have told her the story of his

book and of her part in it. She would have inferred the rest.

He needn't have mentioned love--the word."

"Well," said Peter, "it is not always too late to mend. He may

tell her some fine day yet."

And in his soul two voices were contending.

"Tell her--tell her--tell her! Tell her now, at once, and

abide your chances," urged one. "No--no--no--do nothing of the

kind," protested the second. "She is arguing the point for its

abstract interest. She is a hundred miles from dreaming that

you are the man--hundreds of miles from dreaming that she is

the woman. If she had the least suspicion of that, she would

sing a song as different as may be. Caution, caution."




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