He raised his head with an injured air.
"You have me," he replied.
The countess laughed.
"True, I have you, but I mean some one free and eligible."
"Am I not free and eligible?" he asked, quickly; and then his brave young face grew fiery red under his mother's slow, sneering smile. "I do not mean that; of course I am not free or eligible in that sense of the word, yet I think I am quite as well able to entertain young and pretty girls as old dowagers."
Lady Lanswell looked keenly at him.
"My dear Lance, I will do anything to please you," she said, "but if you persist in considering yourself an engaged man, you must forego the society of charming girls. I have no desire for another visit from that tempestuous young person."
Lance, Lord Chandos, shuddered at the words—"a tempestuous young person"—this was the heroine of his romance, his beautiful Leone, whose voice always came to him with the whisper of the wind, and the sweet ripple of falling water. "A tempestuous young person," his beautiful Leone, whose passionate kisses were still warm on his lips, whose bitter tears seemed wet on his face—Leone, who was a queen by right divine. He turned angrily away, and Lady Lanswell, seeing that she had gone far enough, affected not to see his anger, but spoke next in a laughing tone of voice.
"You see, Lance, in my eyes you are very eligible, indeed, and it seems to me almost cruel to bring you into a circle of young girls, one of whom might admire you, while I know that you can never admire them. Is it not so?"
"I am not free, mother, you know as well as all the world knows; still, I repeat it that it is no reason why you should fill the house with dowagers and never bring the bloom of a young face near it."