“Miss Marlowe has told me nothing, but I have drawn my own conclusions. I have been content to accept Miss Marlowe’s silence—complete silence—respecting the past.”
“Ah, yes,” said Cecil, with a repressed sigh. “What does it matter to you, who have the priceless boon of her present and future love?”
The words were wrung from him, and he would have recalled them if he could have done so, when he saw the effect they produced upon Percy Levant, whose face grew white, and whose eyes flashed.
But he, too, seemed to be striving for self-restraint.
“I am afraid you do not know all, my lord,” he said. “But to come to the business which brought me here! Miss Marlowe and I are to be married on the sixteenth!”
Lord Cecil bit his lip and nodded.
“So soon?” he said, almost inaudibly. “Well, sir, why do you tell me this?”
“Because I have to make a proposal to you, my lord. You expect a challenge from me?”
“I have expected it for the last three days, Mr. Levant.”
“Will you, my lord, permit me to withhold that challenge until the sixteenth?”