"Perhaps until I die—if death should come soon. If not, then God knows how long."
"Listen to me," she said intensely. "For my sake, you will not stay long. You will come away before they kill you. You will! Promise me. You will come—to Paris? Some day, dear heart? Promise!"
He stared at her beseeching face in wide-eyed amazement. A wave of triumphant joy shot through him an instant later. To Paris! She was asking him—but then he understood! Despair was the inspiration of that hungry cry. She did not mean—no, no!
"To Paris?" he said, shaking his head sadly. "No, dearest one. Not now. Listen: I have in my bag upstairs an offer from a great American corporation. I am asked to assume the management of its entire business in France. My headquarters would be in Paris. My duties would begin as soon as my contract with Sir John Brodney expires. The position is a lucrative one; it presents unlimited opportunities. I am a comparatively poor man. The letter was forwarded to me by Sir John. I have a year in which to decide."
"And you—you will decline?" she asked.
"Yes. I shall go back to America, where there are no princesses of the royal blood. Paris is no place for the disappointed, cast-off lover. I can't go there. I love you too madly. I'd go on loving you, and you—good as you are, would go on loving me. There is no telling what would come of it. It will be hard for me to—to stay away from Paris—desperately hard. Sometimes I feel that I will not be strong enough to do it, Genevra."
"But Paris is huge, Hollingsworth," she argued, insistently, an eager, impelling light in her eyes. "We would be as far apart as if the ocean were between us."
"Ah, but would we?" he demanded.
"It is almost unheard-of for an American to gain entrée to our—to the set in which—well, you understand," she said, blushing painfully in the consciousness that she was touching his pride. He smiled sadly.
"My dear, you will do me the honour to remember that I am not trying to get into your set. I am trying to induce you to come into mine. You won't be tempted, so that's the end of it. Beastly day, isn't it?" He uttered the trite commonplace as if no other thought than that of the weather had been in his mind. "By the way," he resumed, with a most genial smile, "for some queer, un-masculine reason, I took it into my head last night to worry about the bride's trousseau. How are you going to manage it if you are unable to leave the island until—well, say June?"