But he neither coloured nor turned pale. He looked at her steadily. “Of course I expect you to do nothing of the sort. As I am not, thanks to my stupidity, in a position to marry you, as we are both too proud and ambitious deliberately to renounce the world after the fashion of those that have nothing worth speaking of to sacrifice, and as a possibly long life on this planet apart is unthinkable, we must resort to compromise. Europe is a small place and I shall see that I am not sent out of it. We can meet constantly. An attaché has little to do—it will be several years before I shall be anything more. I have much influence, I can obtain many leaves of absence. You can gast where I am accredited. I understand that I am to go to Paris. It is not a day’s journey from Munich. You could spend at least one week in every month there, and no one would think of asking what took a prima donna to Paris—any woman, for that matter!”
“And my New York season?”
“I hope you will go to New York only once. Three months will be an eternity, but I should be the last to deprive you of that supreme triumph. I wish it were over—but—well, there will be the long summers which we shall manage to spend together somewhere.”
“We should be the scandal of Europe in six months. Lord Bridgminster will not live long. Your inheritance will make you more conspicuous than ever. All the bishops in England would be writing to the Times protesting against your employment by a virtuous government. A love affair here, and every servant in Munich would know it. In great cities I should be watched by more than servants. American correspondents would sit on my doorstep. Your wife—”
“My wife, when she is well, will, in any case, learn that I shall never live with her again. She will also learn that to criticise any act of mine would be as great an impertinence as if she were one of my relations. She will have everything else that she married me for. In time she must cease to care for a man that will have none of her.”
“Poor thing!” The pity was involuntary and sincere. “How she will suffer!”
“Who does not suffer? Let her be thankful that she is made of thistle-down that any strong wind may blow about, but only from one pleasant place to another.”
“Thistle-down has been known to scatter in winds too strong. You might kill her.”
“The fit survive.”
“Oh, you are hard! You are man epitomized.”