Lady Verningham kept him with her until every one started to go to bed.
There had been music and bridge, and other boring diversions happening, but I sat still. And I don’t know what Malcolm had been talking about, I had not been listening, though I kept murmuring “Yes” and “No.”
He got more and more empressé, until suddenly I realized he was saying, as we rose:
“You have promised! Now remember, and I shall ask you to keep it—to-morrow!”
And there was such a loving, mawkish, wobbly look in his eyes, it made me feel quite sick. The horrible part is, I don’t know what I have promised any more than the man in the moon! It may be something perfectly dreadful, for all I know! Well, if it is a fearful thing, like kissing him, I shall have to break my word,—which I never do for any consideration whatever.
Oh, dear! oh, dear! it is not always so easy to laugh at life as I once thought! I almost wish I were settled down, and had not to be an adventuress. Some situations are so difficult. I think now I shall go to bed.
I wonder if Lord Robert—no, what is the good of wondering; he is no longer my affair.
I shall blow out the light!
300, Park Street,