“But why?” began Kitty; and suddenly prepared to fly, as the first stroke of twelve rang out painfully clear to her anxious ear.
“I’m going with the Admiral, Kitty, and you know what that means.”
“Yes,—that is, what does it mean?”
“It means,—well, it’s Admiral Nelson: and it means that I shall never come back at all, or come back a man.”
“When do you start, Will?” asked Katherine, forgetting all about the minuet and her marquess, and coming forward to take his hands and look into his face. At eighteen it was a beautiful face, but even then so proud that its natural frankness was almost obscured. And yet you forgave its haughtiness, for you felt that such pride would not stoop to anything cowardly or mean, anything that would prevent its keeping itself aloof and aloft. As she took his hands in hers I know how the stern, clean-cut mouth melted into one of the irresistible smiles that such mouths mostly have once in a way.
“Oh, Will!” she said, “I was wondering why did you not come to my coming-out ball—you, Will, my best friend.”
“To see my Lord Dover’s triumph when he had won you, Kitty?” he asked almost bitterly: “I could not bear it. No, I should not have come at all if I had not been going by the morning coach with my mother to Portsmouth.”
“Why, Will, what is Lord Dover to me?” she asked.
“He means to marry you.”
“I don’t mean to marry him.”