"You promise to marry me——"
"Yes, of course, I have promised that," she said slowly.
"And isn't that about the greatest giving there can be? A few horses, and jewels, and such rubbish of sorts, weigh pretty light in the balance against that—I being I"—Richard paused a moment—"and you—you."
But a certain ardour which had come into his speech, for all that he sat very still, and that his expression was wholly gentle and indulgent, and that she felt a comfortable assurance that he was not angry with her, rather troubled little Lady Constance Quayle. She rose to her feet, and stood before him again, as a child about to recite a lesson.
"I think," she said, "I must go. Louisa may want me. Thank you so much. The necklace is quite lovely. I never saw one like it. I like so many colours. They remind me of flowers, or of the colours at sunset in the sky. I shall like to wear this very much. You—you will forgive me for having been foolish—or if I have bored you?"
Her bosom rose and fell, and the words came breathlessly.
"I shall see you at Lady Combmartin's? So—so now I will go."
And with that she departed, leaving Richard more in love with her, somehow, than he had ever been before or had ever thought to be.
CHAPTER VI