The tears coursed slowly over her cheeks, and moved him as nothing she ever could have said would have done.
"For Heaven's sake, aunt, don't cry," he said hurriedly. "You distress me—you make me feel like a brute, and I—really now, I don't think you ought to blame me in this way. Miss Darrell is not a Lady Gwendoline, certainly—she has neither rank nor wealth, but in my sight their absence is no objection whatever. And I love her; everything is said in that."
"You love her," she repeated mournfully. "O my poor boy, my poor boy!"
"I don't think I deserve pity," Sir Victor said, smiling again. "I don't feel as though I did. And now tell me the real reason of all this."
"The real reason?"
"Certainly; you don't suppose I do not see it is something besides those you have given. There is something else under all this. Now let us hear it, and have done with it."
He took both her hands in his and looked at her—a resolute smile on his fair blonde face.
"Troubles are like certain wild animals," he said; "look them straight in the eye and they turn and take to flight. Why should I not marry at twenty-three? If I were marrying any one else—Lady Gwendoline for instance—would my extreme juvenility still be an obstacle?"
"You had much better not marry at all."
"What! live a crusty old bachelor! Now, now, my good aunt, this is a little too much, and not at all what I expected from a lady of your excellent common-sense."