At this the rich colour deepened in her cheek and her eyes grew ineffably tender.
"And you," she murmured, "you are still my Peregrine of the Silent Places, the gentleman who stooped to teach me that love could be—a holy thing—"
From the distance stole the sound of music and suddenly, as if conjured up of these sweet strains, were eager gentlemen all about us, vying with each other for the honour of escorting her down to the ballroom.
"Miss Lovel," simpered a gallant young exquisite, his fashionably pallid features peeping out between the silkiest of glossy whiskers, "we are to be favahed, I think, to be charmed and delighted by your incomparable singing—aw, how do, Vereker! Miss Lovel, you behold me a humble ambassador, to beg, to entreat you to keep us waiting no longer—"
"The evening is young, my lord," she answered lightly, "though your impatience is flattering, I vow—"
"Impatience, Miss Lovel?" sighed a gorgeous being in scarlet and epaulettes. "Impatience—haw—is quite inadequate to express our—hum—I should say, my own sentiments; 'impatience' is a word too—ha—altogether too feeble! For my own part I should—haw—I should rather say we—"
"Passion, ma'm, passion!" exclaimed a square-faced gentleman in naval blue. "Speaking as a blunt sailor, passion's the word, Miss Lovel—passion. Passion's the only word, I think, gentlemen?"
"Indubitably!"
"Positively!"
"Per-fectly!"