"That's right," exclaims Marmaduke, much relieved, moving away to another group in the distance engaged in a hot dispute. Still Chandos lingers.
"I am sorry for this," he says to Bebe, in a low tone, almost haughtily. "But it is not yet too late. If the idea is so detestable to you, then give it up now, and I will support you."
"Why should it be distasteful to me?" very coldly. "I will make no further objections."
"I hope you exonerate me. I could not help it. I am more vexed about it than you can be."
"I think you might have said emphatically just at first you did not wish it. However, it does not matter."
"How could I? Such a remark would have been an implied rudeness to you."
"Then I wish you had been rude."
"You are unreasonable, Miss Beatoun," says his lordship, stiffly. Then in a still lower tone, "There are few things I would not do for you, but that is not one of them."
"I think you had better go and put on those garments Sir Mark rejected. We can finish the argument later on," murmurs Bebe, turning away, with a half-smile, and, Lord Chandos hurrying over his toilet, we have them on our miniature stage sooner than we dared to hope.
But, though they gave in to their own wishes, or rather to their own pride, the performance is a failure, for, though Bebe certainly manages to look the very personification of hardened persistency, Lord Chandos by no means comes up to our idea of the appealing and despairing adorer, and altogether there is a stony finish about it that nobody admires. The spectators are, indeed, polite, and say all manner of pretty things, but they say them from the lips alone, which is palpable and not satisfactory.