"People are so tiresome, as a rule; you can see through them in half an hour. But no one could ever guess about what you were thinking."
"No one would want to—if they knew."
"Is it so terrible as that?" And he smiled—she must be diverted. "I wish I had met you long ago, because, of course, I cannot tell you all the things I now want to—Tristram would be so confoundedly jealous—like he was this afternoon. It is the way of husbands."
Zara did not reply. She quite agreed to this, for of the jealousy of husbands she had experience!
"Now if I were married," Lord Elterton went on, "I would try to make my wife so happy, and would love her so much she would never give me cause to be jealous."
"Love!" said Zara. "How you talk of love—and what does it mean? Gratification to oneself, or to the loved person?"
"Both," said Lord Elterton, and looked down so devotedly into her eyes that the old Duke, who was near, with Laura, thought it was quite time the young man's innings should be over!
So he joined them.
"Come with me, Zara, while I show you some of Tristram's ancestors on his mother's side."
And he placed her arm in his gallantly, and led her away to the most interesting pictures.