‘And pray, who may he have been?’ demanded Lord Ilfracombe, with a sudden access of dignity.
‘Find it out for yourself,’ she said pertly. ‘Oh, he was a dear, quite six foot high, with the goldenest golden hair you ever saw; not a bit like yours. I call yours flaxen. It’s too pale, but his had a rich tinge in it, and he had such lovely eyes, just like a summer night, I nearly cried myself blind when he left Malta.’
‘It seems to me,’ said the earl, with the same offended air he had assumed before, ‘that I am de trop here, since the recollection of this fascinating admirer is still so fresh. Perhaps I had better resign in favour of him while there is still time?’
‘Just as you like!’ returned Nora indifferently. ‘I have no wish to bias your movements in any way. But if you did not want an answer, why did you put the question to me?’
‘But, Nora, my darling, you did not mean what you said? You did not waste any of your precious tears on this brute, surely? You said it only to tease me?’
‘Indeed I did not! Do you imagine you are the only nice man I have ever seen—that I have been shut up on this island like poor Miranda and never met a man before? What a simpleton you must be! Of course I was engaged to him, and should have been married to him by this time, only the poor dear had no certain income, and papa would not hear of it! And I cried for weeks afterwards whenever I heard his name mentioned. Would you have had me an insensible block, and not care whether we had to give each other up or no?’
‘No, no, of course not, but it is terrible to me, Nora, to think you could have cared for another man.’
‘Rubbish!’ cried the young lady. ‘How many women have you cared for yourself? Come now, let us have the list?’
The earl blushed uneasily.
‘I have told you already,’ he replied, ‘that you are the first woman I have ever asked to be the Countess of Ilfracombe!’