“Oh, no. I have an American cousin, Bobby Driscom, who is arriving in a week or so from New York. He and his father are bankers and take care of our affairs. I used to think him handsomer than any god could possibly be, but I have not seen him for two years.”
Ordham experienced such torments of jealousy that he bit his lips and beat a tattoo on the floor with his foot. “Does that mean—Tell me—do you dislike me now that you find I want to marry you? You said that my only charm—”
“Was that you were not in love with me.”
“But I am!”
“I think you only want to marry me—as you put it before. I won’t say a word about my horrid money, because I know perfectly well you would not marry for that alone. But you think I would make a good all-round wife for a diplomat—”
“How can you say such things?”
“I really think I should. And I am positive that you do not love me—yet, at all events. I may not be quite nineteen, but I have had a good many men in love with me, all the same. They began while I was in short frocks and wore my hair in plaits. If I don’t know much about anything else, I am not quite a fool on that subject. Ah, here is luncheon being announced and I cannot ask you to stop. How hateful are all these little convenances that hedge a girl about!” She rose and held out her hand. “But we will play tennis on Monday? Meanwhile do not let us think of such serious things as love and marriage. Youth does not last so very long. When you are thirty and I am twenty-four, come and propose to me again. And please, please do not tell mother that you proposed to me to-day, or I shall not have a happy time. Mother is sweet and dear, but when she sets her mind upon a thing—Will you promise?”
“Of course. But I don’t intend to wait until I am thirty to propose again.”
He was dismissed with a bewildering, tantalizing smile beneath sad, unfathomable eyes, that sent him up the wrong street and caused him nearly to be run down twice by hansom cabs.