She put out her hands as he came close. But he knelt at her feet, kissing her hands, her wrists, the folds of her dress, then lifted his face glowing, ardent, to her own.
“I shall make you love me some day,” he whispered; “not now, perhaps, but some day.”
She stared at him without a word. She had received proposals of marriage, dignified, ceremonious affairs submitted to her by the dowager, but from this stranger came the first avowal of love she had ever listened to. A stranger; yet he held her hand; she felt herself drawn towards him by a force she could not combat. Her other arm was over the back of a chair, slowly she lifted it, then he felt her hand touch his hair and the touch was a caress.
“My queen!”
“Co––now,” she said so lowly. It was almost a whisper. He arose, pressed her hand to his lips and turned away, when a woman’s voice spoke among the palms:
“Did you say in this corner, Madame? I have not found him; Kenneth!”
“It is my mother,” he said softly, and was about to draw back the alcove draperies when the Marquise took a step towards him, staring strangely into his face.
“Your Mother!” and her tones expressed only doubt and 77 dread. “No, no! Why, I––I know the voice; it is Madame McVeigh; she called Kenneth, her son––”
He smiled an affirmative.
“Yes; you will forgive me for having my name spoken to you after all? But there seems to be no help for it. So you see I am not English despite the hat, and my name is Kenneth McVeigh.”