“More than any woman you have ever known?”
“A hundred times more.”
We must have presented an absurdly solemn appearance, I planting my questions like a detective administering the third degree, the count nodding automatically as he jerked out his answers, his eyes fixed on me with an almost fierce stare.
“Why don’t you marry her?”
That was my inspiration. It seems to me the most inexplicable aberration that ever seized a sane woman—only for the moment I wasn’t sane. One of the curious points about it was that I never thought of Lizzie at all, whether she would want him or not. All I saw was the count transformed into a genie, unexpectedly come to my aid. I make no doubt if she had shown reluctance I would have counseled him to kidnap her as his ancestors kidnaped the Sabine women.
His expression brought me back to sense. He was looking at me with a blank unbelieving surprise as if I had suggested something beyond the limits of human endeavor. If I had urged him to inaugurate a conspiracy against his king or an exploring party to the moon, he could not have appeared more astonished.
“Marry her!” he ejaculated.
“Yes, marry her. You love her, you’ve just said so.”
“Most assuredly I do, to distraction.”
“Then why do you look so surprised?”