“I loved a woman once,” he answered. “It was a long time ago, and it seems strange to me now.”
Lady Ruth lifted her eyes to his, and their lambent fires were suddenly rekindled.
“Love her again,” she murmured. “What is past is past, but there are the days to come! Perhaps the woman, too, is a little lonely.”
“I think not,” he answered calmly. “The woman is married, she has lived with her husband more or less happily for a dozen years or so! She is a little ambitious, a little fond of pleasure, but a leader of society, and, I am sure, a very reputable member of it. To love her again would be as embarrassing to her—as it would be difficult for me. You, my dear Lady Ruth, I am convinced, would be the last to approve of it.”
“You mock me,” she murmured, bending her head. “Is forgiveness also an impossibility?”
“I think,” he said, “that any sentiment whatever between those two would be singularly misplaced. You spoke of Melba, I think! She is singing in the further room.”
Lady Ruth rose up, still and pale. There was fear in her eyes when she looked at him.
“Is it to be always like this, then?” she said.
“Ah!” he answered, “I am no prophet. Who can tell what the days may bring? In the meantime...”
The Marchioness was very much in request that evening, and she found time for only a few words with Wingrave.