"I am not at all sure," he said, "that I have enough courage to make love to a Duchess!"
"Then you can remember only that I am a woman," she whispered, "very, very, very much a woman, and—I'm afraid—a woman shockingly in love!"
She disengaged herself suddenly, and was at the door before he could reach it. She looked back. Her cheeks were flushed. There was even a faint tinge of pink underneath the creamy white of her slender, stately neck.
"Don't dare," she said, "to be more than five minutes!"
Mannering poured himself out a glass of wine, and sat quite still with his head between his hands. He wanted to realize this thing if he could. The grinding of the great wheels fell no more upon his ears. He looked into a new world, so different from the old that he was almost afraid.
And in her room, Berenice waited for him impatiently.
CHAPTER VII
A BLOW FOR BORROWDEAN
There was a somewhat unusual alertness in Borrowdean's manner as he passed out from the little house in Sloane Gardens and summoned a passing hansom. He drove to the corner of Hyde Park, and dismissing the cab strolled along the broad walk.