And instinctively Katherine fell to pleading. She sat down beside the bed again and smoothed the sheet.
"You will be tender and loving to her, Dickie?" she said. "For she is young and very gentle, and might easily be made afraid. You will not forget what is due to your wife, to your bride, in your longing for a child?"
"Who is it?" Richard demanded again.
"Ludovic's sister—little Lady Constance Quayle."
He drew in his breath sharply.
"Would she—would her people consent?" he said.
"I think so. Judging by appearances, I am almost sure they would consent."
A long silence followed. Richard lay still, looking at the rosy flush that broadened in the morning sky and touched the bosoms of those delicate clouds with living, pulsating colour. And he flushed too, all his being softened into a great tenderness, a great shyness, a quick yet noble shame. For his whole attitude towards this question of marriage changed strangely as it passed from the abstract, from regions of vague purpose and desire, to the concrete, to the thought of a maiden with name and local habitation, a maiden actual and accessible, whose image he could recall, whose pretty looks and guileless speech he knew.
"I almost wish she was not Ludovic's sister, though," he remarked presently. "It is a great deal to ask."
"You have a great deal to offer," Katherine said, adding: "You can care for her, Dickie?"