He had risen from the breakfast-table, and was walking up and down the room, with that light careless step of his which seemed in perfect harmony with his tall slim figure. He was very pale, and his eyes were brighter than usual, and there was a quick restlessness in the smile that flashed across his face now and then.
"Do I bore you so much, Geoffrey?" his mother asked, with a wounded look.
"You bore me? No, no, no! Oh, surely you know how the land lies. Surely this fever cannot have been eating up my heart and my strength all this time without your eyes seeing, and your heart sympathizing. You must know that I love her."
"I feared as much, my poor Geoffrey."
No name had been spoken; yet mother and son understood each other.
"You feared! Great God, why should it be a reason for fear? Here am I, young, rich, my own master—and here is she as free as she is fair—free to be my wife to-morrow, except for this tie which is no tie—a foolish engagement to a man she never loved."
"Has she told you that?"
"Not she. Her lips are locked by an over-strained sense of honour. She will marry a man for whom she doesn't care a straw. She will be miserable all her life, or at best she will have missed happiness, and on her deathbed she will boast to her parish priest, 'I kept my word.' Poor pretty Puritan! She thinks it virtue to break my heart and grieve her own."
"You have told her of your love, Geoffrey?"
"Yes."