She answered curtly:
"You and Precious sat close together with clasped hands like lovers. Am I to understand that my sister has deceitfully stolen my place in your heart, and that it would be best for me to resign my claim on your hand in her favor also?"
They were daring words, and if she had not known that Lord Chester was the soul of honor she would not have risked them. There was many a man who would have metaphorically "jumped at the chance" to be free of fetters that chafed so cruelly.
But Lord Chester, standing before her with arms folded on his broad chest, his dark-gray eyes ablaze with feeling, answered low and reproachfully:
"It grieves me, Ethel, to have you display a causeless jealousy for your noble and innocent young sister."
Ethel's red lips had curled at Arthur's tribute of praise to her sister, and she cried out quickly:
"It is plain that you admire my sister very much."
"I do," he replied quietly. "Do you object, Ethel?"
She sighed bitterly as she answered:
"Forgive me, dearest Arthur; but I love you so dearly that I would fain have you find no woman fair or admirable but myself."