"No, don't laugh," she said quickly, almost as if something in his careless speech had pained her. "We must look at the matter from every stand-point before—before we take any action. Suppose you really did want to marry some one? Suppose you fell in love again? What then?"
"What then?" said Cheveril. And, though he was obligingly serious, she felt that somehow, somewhere, he was tricking her. "I should have to ask you to release me in that event. But I don't think it's very likely that will happen. I'm not so impressionable as I was."
She looked at him doubtfully. Obviously he was not in love with her, yet she was uneasy. She had a curious sense of loss, of disappointment, which even Jim's departure had not created in her.
"I don't feel that I am doing right," she said finally.
"I am quite unscrupulous," said Cheveril lightly. "Moreover, there is no harm to any one in the transaction. Your life is your own. No one else has the right to order it for you. It seems to me that in this matter you need to consider yourself alone."
"And you," she said, in a troubled tone.
He surprised her an instant later by thrusting a friendly hand through her arm.
"Come!" he said, smiling down at her. "Let us go and announce the good news!"
And so she yielded to him, and went.