‘I shall try,’ said she calmly.
Stung to the quick by a composure which he could not imitate, he was able, however, to repress every show of anger, and with a manner cold and measured as her own, he went on: ‘My lord advises that I should go back to diplomacy, and has asked the Ministers to give me Guatemala. It is nothing very splendid. It is far away in a remote part of the world; not over-well paid, but at least I shall be Chargé-d’Affaires, and by three years—four at most, of this banishment—I shall have a claim for something better.
‘I hope you may, I’m sure,’ said she, as he seemed to expect something like a remark.
‘That is not enough, Maude, if the hope be not a wish—and a wish that includes self-interest.’
‘I am so dull, Cecil: tell me what you mean.’
‘Simply this, then: does your heart tell you that you could share this fortune, and brave these hardships; in one word, will you say what will make me regard this fate as the happiest of my existence? will you give me this dear hand as my own—my own?’ and he pressed his lips upon it rapturously as he spoke.
She made no effort to release her hand; nor for a second or two did she say one word. At last, in a very measured tone, she said, ‘I should like to have back my letters.’
‘Your letters? Do you mean, Maude, that—that you would break with me?’
‘I mean certainly that I should not go to this horrid place—’
‘Then I shall refuse it,’ broke he in impetuously.