'I hope you will have a better guardian before you are a month older. I mean to be a very strong rock, Lesbia. You do not know how firmly I shall stand between you and all the perils of society. You have been but poorly guarded hitherto.'
'You talk as if you mean to be an abominable tyrant,' said Lesbia. 'If you don't take care I shall change my mind, and recall my promise.'
'Not on that account, Lesbia: every woman likes a man who stands up for his own. It is only your invertebrate husband whose wife drifts into the divorce court. I mean to keep and hold the prize I have won. When is it to be, dearest—our wedding day?'
'Not for ages, I hope—some time next summer, at the earliest.'
'You would not be so cruel as to keep me waiting a year?'
'Why not?'
'You would not ask that if you loved me.'
'You are asking too much,' said Lesbia, with a flash of defiance. 'There has been nothing said about love yet. You asked me to be your wife, and I said yes—meaning that at some remote period such a thing might be.'
She knew that the man was her slave—slave to her beauty, slave to her superior rank—and she was determined not to lessen the weight of his chain by so much as a feather.
'Did not that promise imply something like love?' he asked, earnestly.