"Better leave me out of the question."
"You!"
"I am outside your life, Baltimore," says she, laying her hand on the back of the seat beside her, and sinking into it. "Leave me there!"
"Would you bereave me of all things," says he, "even my friends? I thought—I believed, that you at least—understood me."
"Too well!" says she in a low tone. Her hands have met each other and are now clasped together in her lap in a grip that is almost hurtful. Great heavens! if he only knew—could he then probe, and wound, and tempt!
"If you do——" begins he—then stops short, and passing her, paces to and fro before her in the dying light of the moon. Lady Swansdown leaning back gazes at him with eyes too sad for tears—eyes "wild with all regret." Oh! if they two might but have met earlier. If this man—this man in all the world, had been given to her, as her allotment.
"Beatrice!" says he, stopping short before her, "were you ever in love?"
There is a dead silence. Lady Swansdown sinking still deeper into the arm of the chair, looks up at him with strange curious eyes. What does he mean? To her—to put such a question to her of all women! Is he deaf, blind, mad—or only cruel?
A sort of recklessness seizes upon her. Well, if he doesn't know, he shall know, though it be to the loss of her self-respect forever!
"Never," says she, leaning a little forward until the moonbeams gleam upon her snowy neck and arms. "Never—never—until——"