"No, my dear aunt; a very different person from Lady Gwendoline. Miss
Darrell."
She sat erect and gazed at him—stunned.
"Miss Darrell! Edith Darrell—the American girl, the—Victor, if this is a jest—"
"Lady Helena, am I likely to jest on such a subject? It is the truth.
This morning Miss Darrell—Edith—has made me the happiest man in
England by promising to be my wife. Surely, aunt, you must have
suspected—must have seen that I loved her."
"I have seen nothing," she answered blankly, looking straight before her—"nothing. I am only an old woman—I am growing blind and stupid, I suppose. I have seen nothing."
There was a pause. At no time was Sir Victor Catheron a fluent or ready speaker—just at present, perhaps, it was natural he should be rather at a loss for words. And her ladyship's manner was the reverse of reassuring.
"I have loved her from the first," he said, breaking once more the silence—"from the very first night of the party, without knowing it. In all the world, she is the only one I can ever marry. With her my life will be supremely happy, superbly blessed; without her—but no! I do not choose to think what my life would be like without her. You, who have been as a mother to me all my life, will not mar my perfect happiness on this day of days by saying you object."
"But I do object!" Lady Helena exclaimed, with sudden energy and anger. "More—I absolutely refuse. I say again, you are too young to want to marry at all. Why, even your favorite Shakespeare says: 'A young man married, is a man that's marred.' When you are thirty it will be quite time enough to talk of this. Go abroad again—see the world—go to the East, as you have often talked of doing—to Africa—anywhere! No man knows himself or his own heart at the ridiculous age of twenty-three!"
Sir Victor Catheron smiled, a very quiet and terribly obstinate smile.
"My extreme youth, then, is your only objection?"