“Yes, Miss Christmas,” I say, “this is your proper setting. I have lost my case.”
The vile brute in me—the vile brute! She does not answer a word; but, with a quick sob, she wrenches the diamond from her bosom, the pearls from her hair, and that falls and half veils her face. And the next moment she is prostrate at my feet.
“Richard! I will be poor—O, I will be poor!”
Hush! Who is this come suddenly upon us from the shadows, where Ira, hearing my step, had hidden her?
“Will you make my burden, Richard, more than I can bear?”
I turn in amazement. It is Lady Skene.
“I have dared much to come to you—to her,” she says, in a low agitated voice. “I knew from my husband that you could never win—not there—not in that Court. But here, Richard? O, it is great to be generous in triumph, but greater in defeat.”
“Generous! What have I left to give in all the world?”
“Yourself.”
“Ira!” I cry, as if waking from a dream. “What have I been saying? What wicked nonsense have I been talking? Why, what has all this to do with you and me? Money and titles? I don’t remember their ever having had anything to do with the understanding between us. Or had they? I am stupid, and I can’t remember.”