Louisa was silent for a moment or two, then she said:
"Luke is different somehow. He has been different lately."
"He has a lot to put up with, with old Radclyffe going off his head in that ridiculous way."
But Louisa did not reply to that suggestion. She knew well enough that it was neither Lord Radclyffe's unkindness, nor the arrogance of the new cousin that had changed and softened Luke's entire nature.
The day that he had sat beside her on the stain at Lady Ducies' ball, the completeness of the change had been fully borne in on her. When Luke said to her: "I would give all I have in the world to lie on the ground before you and to kiss the soles of your feet," she knew that Love had wrought its usual exquisite miracle, the absorption of self by another, the utter sinking of the ego before the high altar of the loved one. She knew all that, but dear old Colonel Harris had forgotten—perhaps he had never known.
That knowledge comes to so few nowadays. Life, psychology, and sexual problems have taken the place of the divine lesson which has glorified the world since the birth of Lilith.
All that Louisa now remarked to her kind and sensible father was——
"You know, dear, suspicion has killed a man before now. It was but a very little while ago that a noble-hearted gentleman preferred death to such dishonour."
"You've got your head," he retorted, "full of nonsense, Lou. Try and be a sensible woman now, and think of it all quietly. Is there anything you would like me to do, for instance?"
"Yes, if you will."