“Well, they are property,” said her ladyship, with a provoking laugh. “I get tired of an ornament so soon; it is nice to know I can dispose of it to advantage, and buy something that pleases me better with the money.”
“Lady Gwendolyn, I give you notice that I don’t believe a word you are saying.”
“No?”
“No, I do not believe you to be so bad as you make yourself out,” he pursued, with indignant emphasis, for he was trying to convince himself as well as to shame her. “But I cannot understand the pleasure of shocking people.”
“Because you are not sensational.”
“Heaven forbid!” he ejaculated fervently.
“Why ‘Heaven forbid?’ There is nothing so delightful. I should die of ennui down here, if it weren’t for an occasional tragedy or surprise.”
“It is to be hoped you won’t have one too many,” he answered gravely.
She lifted her mutinous face from his shoulder to look into his eyes, and then subsided back into her warm shelter, smiling an odd, keen, satisfied little smile, which seemed to say: “You belong to me so thoroughly now that, whatever I may say or do, you cannot break your bonds.”
And, alas! it was only too true. He knew this himself by his undiminished longing to crush her into his arms—to carry her away to some quiet corner of the earth, where she might belong to him undisputed, and satisfy his whole being with the sweetness of her presence. For this he would have resigned gladly all the advantages she had just been enumerating; for this he would have sacrificed everything but his honor, and hope of heaven.