"If you said in the Matcham world, it would not be a stupendous compliment."
"Nay, I mean the world. I challenge the universe to produce me a second Suzette. And Geoffrey, your violin player, has he been much at home?"
"Not very much. Please don't call him my violin player. I have not played a single accompaniment for him since you objected. I have been very dutiful."
"Don't talk of duty. It is love that I want, love without alloy; love which, being full of foolishness itself, can forgive a lover's baseless jealousy."
"Allan, have I ever been unforgiving?"
"No, you have borne with my tempers. You have been all that is kind and sweet—but I sometimes wish you would be angry with me. Would that there were a girl in Matcham handsome enough to admit of your jealousy! How desperately I would flirt with that girl!"
Her wan smile was not encouraging.
"Is he still as devoted to his fiddle? Does he talk of Tartini, Spontini, de Beriot, as other men talk of Salisbury or Gladstone?"
"I have seen very little of him; but he is a fanatic about music. He inherits his mother's passion."
"His poor mother," sighed Allan.