"Lady Marion has asked me to be her friend; she is good enough to say she admires me. What shall I do?"
He was silent for some minutes, then he said:
"There is one thing, Leone, if you become a friend, or even a visitor of Lady Marion's, I should see a great deal of you, and that would be very pleasant; it is all there is left in life. I should like it, Leone—would you?"
Looking up, she met the loving light of the dark eyes full upon her. Her face flushed.
"Yes," she whispered, "I, too, should like it."
There was silence between them for some little time, then Leone said:
"Would it be quite safe for me to visit you? Do you think that Lady Lanswell would recognize me?"
"No," he answered, "if the eyes of love failed to recognize you at one glance, the eyes of indifference will fail altogether. My mother is here to-night; risk an introduction to her, and you will see. It would give fresh zest and pleasure to my life if you could visit us."
"It would be pleasant," said Leone, musingly; "and yet to my mind, I cannot tell why, there is something that savors of wrong about it. Lord Chandos," she added, "I like your wife, she was kindness itself to me. We must mind one thing if I enter your house; I must be to you no more than any other person in it—I must be a stranger—and you must never even by one word allude to the past; you promise that, do you not?"
"I will promise everything and anything," he replied. "I will ask Madame de Chandalle to introduce you to my mother—I should not have the nerve for it."