Chapter Seven
Colonel Audley was very late for breakfast. He came into the parlour to find his brother standing by the window, glancing through the Gazette de Bruxelles, and his sister-in-law with her chair already pushed back from the table. She looked searchingly at him as he entered, for she had heard the front door slam a minute earlier and knew that he had been out riding again. Her heart sank; she had never seen quite that radiant look on his face before. "Well, Charles," she said. "You've been out already?"
"Yes." He held out his hands to her. "Wish me joy!" he said.
She let him take her hands, but faltered: "Wish you joy? What can you mean?"
"Lady Barbara has promised to be my wife," he answered.
She snatched her hands away. "Impossible! No, no, you're joking!"
He looked down at her, half laughing, half surprised. "I assure you I am not!"
"You scarcely know her! You cannot mean it!"
"But, my dear Judith, I do mean it! I am the happiest man on earth!"
The dismay she felt was plainly to be read in her face. He drew back. "Don't you intend to wish me joy?" he asked.