'Yes, Dulcie, by the train for Worcester and the north. My estates, you know, are in Scotland.'
'These changes are all strange and most startling,' said she, with a sob in her slender throat.
'We live in whirligig times, Dulcie; but I suppose it is the result of progress,' he added sententiously. 'I wonder how our grandfathers and grandmothers contrived to mope over and yawn out their dull and emotionless existence till they reached threescore and ten years.'
'I shall never see that age, Shafto.'
'Who knows; though life, however sweet now, won't be worth living for then, I fancy.'
Dulcie sighed, and he regarded her in admiring silence, for he had a high appreciation of her bright and delicate beauty, and loved her—if we may degrade the phrase—in his own selfish and peculiar way, though now resolved—as he had often thought vainly—to 'fly at higher game;' and so, full of ideas, hopes, and ambitions of his own, if he had ceased to think of Dulcie, he had, at least, ceased for a space to trouble her.
'Florian will be writing to you, of course?' said he, after a pause.
'Alas! no, we have made no arrangement; and then, you know, papa——'
'Wouldn't approve, of course. My farewell advice to you, Dulcie, is—Don't put off your time thinking of Florian—his ship will never come home.'
'Nor yours either, perhaps,' said Dulcie, angrily.