"No," he replied gravely. "I gave no thought to her until I came home and saw her. And it was not for love of her that I should have married her, Nell, but in sheer desperation. You see, it did not matter to me whom I married if I could not have you."
"And yet—ah, how hard love is!—she cares for you, Drake! I have seen her—I saw her on the terrace, I saw her at the ball here."
He laughed half bitterly.
"My dear Nell, don't let that idea worry you. There is nothing in it; it is quite a mistaken one. Luce is a charming woman, the most finished product of this fin de siècle life——"
"She is very beautiful," Nell said, just even to her rival.
"I'll grant it, though compared to a certain violet-eyed girl I know——"
Nell put her hand over his lips; and he kissed it, and went on gravely.
"No, it is not given to Luce to love any one but herself. She and her kind worship the Golden Image which we set up at every street corner. Rank, wealth, the notoriety that is paragraphed in the society papers, those are what Luce worships, and marries for. By the accident of birth I represent most of these things, and so——"
He shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
"And now chance has helped me again, for her father has inherited the Marquisate of Buckleigh, and he will be rich. It is likely enough that she would have jilted me again."