His voice is a mere whisper.
"Oh yes, there is—there," eagerly, "must be. What! Would you throw me over altogether, Maurice? Oh, that I could not bear! Why should we not be as brother and sister to each other? Yes, yes," vehemently; "tell me it shall be so. You will ask me to your new house, Maurice, won't you?"
She is looking up into his face, her hand still pressing his arm.
"My wife's house."
"Your wife's house is yours, is it not? You owe yourself something from this marriage. You will ask me there now and then?"
"She will ask her own guests, I suppose."
"She will ask whom you choose. Pah! what is she but a child in your hands?"
"Tita is not the cipher you describe her," says Rylton coldly.
"No, no; I spoke wrongly—I am always wrong, it seems to me," says she, with such sweet contrition that she disarms him again. "I cannot live if I cannot see you sometimes, and, besides, you know what my life is here, and how few are the houses I can go to, and"—she slips her arms suddenly round his neck—"you will ask me sometimes, Maurice?"
"Yes."