It took him some half second to pull himself together. Then to turn her thoughts from him, his from her, if he might, he questioned:
"What sort of a man is Prince Pollona?"
"Oh," she cried warmly, "the best! a kind, good, honorable friend. He deserves something better than the horrors I have put him through, poor dear!"
"He seemed very devoted to you," Bulstrode said, "if one could judge."
Not without pride she admitted that he was, and that the Prince had always wanted to marry her. "I might have married him," she repeated, "easily a score of times. But how it appears to interest you——" she said jealously.
"Only as he interests you," replied Bulstrode, "and what you tell me is a great satisfaction. To be the Princess Pollona is an honor that many women would be glad to have conferred upon them." Felicia Warren's good looks were undeniable, her genre was exquisite, and Bulstrode, again with no effort, believed all she said. Princes had married far less royal-looking women, of far more humble antecedents than Felicia Warren.
"Oh, his rank didn't dazzle me," she murmured absently, "they seem all alike, and when they find out that I am not a certain kind they ask me to marry them... But if I could only get back to the Mill on the Rose, Mr. Bulstrode! If I might again see it as I used, if I could see you there as I used to see you—walk by your side; row with you on the river; if I could hear the wheel again as I used to hear it, then"—her voice was delicious, a very note of the river of which she spoke. Oh, she must act well, there was no doubt about that; no wonder she had been a success: "If I might walk there with you—titles, even my art and all the rest"—she did not apparently dare to look at him as she spoke, but fixed her eyes across the room as if she saw back twelve years into ——shire ... "if I could only, only go back again with you!"
In spite of himself, carried away by her voice, Bulstrode said:
"You shall, you shall go back with me!"
"Oh, Mr. Bulstrode," she gave a little cry and caught his hand, steadying herself by the act.