"I had been unhappy and very lonely. I feared to hope for joy again, till the day that you told me you loved me." And she hid her face on his shoulder to hide her blushes.
"Come," he said. "We must think of the present. I have a little surprise for you. I have been going over my affairs, and I do not think it will be necessary to take you away from home for so long a time as I had first thought. I hope that in six months we may be able to return."
"Oh!" she cried. "That is indeed good news! I dread your England. It is so far away, and so strange."
"I shall try to teach you to love it. But we must be returning to the house. Our guests will miss us."
"Oh, yes," she replied. "I meant to have told you. The president of some great manufacturing company has arrived to pay his respects, and is anxious to speak with you."
CHAPTER II
WANTED—A CHAPERON
Aloysius Stanley, Secretary of a South American Embassy, was not happy. Yet he was counted one of the most fortunate young men in London. Of good family, and large fortune, he had attained a social position, which not a few might envy. His rooms faced the park, he belonged to the swellest and most inane club in town, was ex officio a member of the Court, and knew at least two duchesses, not perhaps intimately, but well enough to speak to at a crush. He had been christened Aloysius, because his father owned a large plantation in a South American Republic—no, it was a Dictatorship then—and had named his son after the saint on whose day he had been born, out of consideration for the religious prejudices of the community.
His name, then, was Aloysius Stanley, and this was the reason his intimates called him "Jim." His other titles were "my dear colleague," when his brethren in the diplomatic corps wanted anything of him, and "Mr. Secretary" when his chief was wroth.