"I must go and tell Hermia," she says, starting to her feet: "that is the dressing-bell."
"You won't let her influence you against me?"
"Nobody could do that." She moves away from him, and then runs back to him again and lays her arms round his neck.
"You are more to me now than Hermia and the world!" she says, softly.
Yet presently, when she finds herself in Hermia's calm presence, her courage somewhat fails her. It is not that she for a moment contemplates the idea of having to give up her lover, but she is afraid of her cousin's cold disparagement of both him and her.
"I have just promised to marry Ulic," she says, plunging without preface into her story, with a boldness born of nervous excitement.
"To marry him! Why, I thought you looked upon him as a mere boy! Your 'baby,' you used to call him."
"Probably that is why I have accepted him. A baby should not be allowed to roam the world at large without some one to look after him."
"Do you love him, Olga?"
"Yes, I do," says Olga, defiantly. "You may scold me if you like, but a title isn't everything, and he is worth a dozen of that cold, stiff Rossmoyne."