He was on the footing where men are precipitated by what is within them to blunder. ‘On you—no. On you personally, not at all. No. It could not be deemed so. Not by those knowing, esteeming—not by him who loves you, and would, with his name, would, with his whole strength, envelop, shield ... certainly, certainly not.’
‘It is on my parents?’ she said.
‘But to me nothing, nothing, quite nought! To confound the innocent with the guilty!... and excuses may exist. We know but how little we know!’
‘It is on both my parents?’ she said; with a simplicity that induced him to reply: ‘Before the world. But not, I repeat...’
The band-instruments behind the sheltering glass flourished on their termination of a waltz.
She had not heeded their playing. Now she said:
‘The music is over; we must not be late at lunch’; and she stood up and moved.
He sprang to his legs and obediently stepped out:
‘I shall have your answer to-day, this evening? Nesta!’
‘Mr. Barmby, it will be the same. You will be kind to me in not asking me again.’