“Then this is going to be good-bye until you come to town again?” she said, rather sadly.
“I suppose so,” Lionel admitted disconsolately.
They looked at each other a moment.
“Are you quite—quite sure that you want it?” she asked presently.
“Quite sure,” he answered, without hesitation.
“Because men have done such things and have been sorry afterwards. Since I’ve been here I’ve understood that it’s not going to be nearly so easy for you as I had thought. I’ve not spoken about it, but I must before you take the final step. It’s all so different from what I had expected, or even dreamed of.”
“What is different?” Lionel asked.
“The way you live. You see, you never told me anything about it. You only said that your father was a country gentleman, decently well off, and that you could give yourself up to study because you would have enough to live on. You never gave me the least idea that you were very rich people, nor that it was a great old estate and entailed, and all that sort of thing. It makes a difference, you know.”
“I don’t see why,” Lionel objected.
“I do. It’s one thing for the son of a quiet, retired officer of no particular position to marry a foundling and a governess. It’s quite another, now that you turn out to be great country people, related to half the peerage, and perfectly frightfully rich. I wish you were not.”