Grace sighed. With a forced laugh she said:
"Happiness! What is happiness? We are always pursuing it, we think we've found it, only to find it empty and unreal, after all."
"You're happy, aren't you?" he persisted.
For a moment she made no answer. Then she said:
"Yes—I suppose I am."
"When do you expect to get married?" he asked.
"I don't know—nothing is settled—perhaps never——"
She laughed nervously. There was something in the tone of her voice that sounded like a stifled sob.
Armitage watched her closely. This was not the way a happy woman acts or talks. Could it be that she did not care for the Prince, that she was forcing herself in this ambitious marriage in spite of her own better, truer self? Certainly the man was unworthy of her. The escapades and scandals in which he had been mixed up were the talk of Europe. She must be aware of his real character, or was she completely blinded by the brilliancy of his position? His heart throbbed furiously as he thought that he had perhaps guessed the truth.
He wondered if it would make any difference if he told her everything, of the miraculous change in his fortune, that he was no longer a penniless outcast of society, but the bearer of one of the proudest titles in England. That's why he hesitated. It might make a difference, and that he didn't want. If after being told of the change in his position she consented to marry him, he would always suspect that it was for his title. No, if he was to win her he was determined that she should love him for himself. The thought that there was still a possibility of making her his wife had never presented itself until now. On the desert island, remote from the conventions of civilized life, bound only by nature's laws, he had claimed her as his chattel, his primordial right. He was the lord and master whose will she must obey without question. But now, restored to the protection of civilization, she was free to exercise her own will, and it had never occurred to him that, of all the men who had courted her, she might have chosen him from preference. Such a possibility was beyond his most fantastic dreams. Yet, after all, why not?