“You prophesied, as I recollect, that I should be courted by the highest in the land; admired by all the rank and fashion of London. ‘Dukes;’ said you—and I vow you would have laughed had you but known the gloomy despair of your face—‘dukes and marquises will be fighting for the privilege of kissing your hand.’ Well, your words have come true; many grandees have come a-courting me; this hand of mine has been kissed by royalty. And yet, John Cotley, ’tis a weary life. Empty flattery, tiresome praise—a feather-headed crew that flutter round me with unmeaning smiles and foolish compliments. Not one true man among them.”
As she paused, he bowed stiffly.
“Amid all my success I am sick at heart,” she went on, excitedly. “I long for a home; I long to find a loyal heart, a hand that I could rely on.”
“I regret to hear, madam,” said Cotley, as she paused again, “that events have not justified your expectations.”
She looked at him fixedly for a moment, and then smiling archly, went on—
“And you tell me you have forgotten this conversation of ours? Now, I can recall it word for word. When I first emerged from under the leafy archway yonder”—with a wave of the hand—“you were standing thus”—
She rose to her feet and struck an attitude, head bent, one hand pressed to her brow, the other clutching at the ruffles at her breast. “And I was so rude as to laugh; do you remember?”
“You have the advantage of me, madam,” said John Cotley, sternly.
She continued as though she had not heard him, and with a little tremor in her voice. “You said some pretty things about my being an angel, and I asked you what you knew of me; and you said that you knew only what your eyes had shown you, and what your heart had told you. Oh, John, does your heart tell you nothing now?”
“I do not understand you,” said John, steadily.