'I will tell you,' she replied, speaking almost with physical pain, yet
as if determination should carry her through. 'I am
eight-and-twenty--nearly--I mean a little more, a few months more. Am I
not a fearful deal older than you?' 'At first it seems a great deal,' he answered, musing. 'But it doesn't
seem much when one gets used to it.' 'Nonsense!' she exclaimed. 'It _is_ a good deal.' 'Very well, then, sweetest Lady Constantine, let it be,' he said gently.
'You should not let it be! A polite man would have flatly contradicted
me. . . . O I am ashamed of this!' she added a moment after, with a
subdued, sad look upon the ground. 'I am speaking by the card of the
outer world, which I have left behind utterly; no such lip service is
known in your sphere. I care nothing for those things, really; but that
which is called the Eve in us will out sometimes. Well, we will forget
that now, as we must, at no very distant date, forget all the rest of
this.' He walked beside her thoughtfully awhile, with his eyes also bent on the
road. 'Why must we forget it all?' he inquired.
'It is only an interlude.' 'An interlude! It is no interlude to me. O how can you talk so lightly
of this, Lady Constantine? And yet, if I were to go away from here, I
might, perhaps, soon reduce it to an interlude! Yes,' he resumed
impulsively, 'I will go away. Love dies, and it is just as well to
strangle it in its birth; it can only die once! I'll go.' 'No, no!' she said, looking up apprehensively. 'I misled you. It is no interlude to me,--it is tragical. I only meant that from a worldly point
of view it is an interlude, which we should try to forget. But the world
is not all. You will not go away?' But he continued drearily, 'Yes, yes, I see it all; you have enlightened
me. It will be hurting your prospects even more than mine, if I stay.
Now Sir Blount is dead, you are free again,--may marry where you will,
but for this fancy of ours. I'll leave Welland before harm comes of my
staying.' 'Don't decide to do a thing so rash!' she begged, seizing his hand, and
looking miserable at the effect of her words. 'I shall have nobody left
in the world to care for! And now I have given you the great telescope,
and lent you the column, it would be ungrateful to go away! I was wrong;
believe me that I did not mean that it was a mere interlude to _me_. O
if you only knew how very, very far it is from that! It is my doubt of
the result to you that makes me speak so slightingly.' They were now approaching cross-roads, and casually looking up they beheld, thirty or forty yards beyond the crossing, Mr. Torkingham, who
was leaning over a gate, his back being towards them. As yet he had not
recognized their approach.