"I could never have done it."
"Then your marriage was not for Marius, for your mother, it was for yourself."
"As this is my confession, I suppose you are right, Susannah. I could never have done other than I did—am I the man for an idyll? It happened to be charming to imagine it."
Miss Chressham raised her grave, dark eyes.
"And afterwards, when you dared to ask Selina to refuse Sir Francis?"
"That was a matter of vanity," confessed my lord, "and perhaps curiosity; I wanted to know. Ah, well, I had a number of motives."
Miss Chressham put her hand to her head.
"I think I understand, at last; indeed I see it very clearly. But there is something you do not see clearly—the position of Selina Boyle."
The Earl toyed with his glass.
"Can I flatter myself that she would recall an incident that touched her so little? The whole thing was but a matter of sighs and smiles."