He spoke half banteringly, but very tenderly, and she hardly knew how to take him.
"As I am I, and as you are you, that is out of the question, you know," he went on, almost in a whisper. "You are not the girl to break your oath and I am not the man to tempt you, even if I thought I could do it with success. So all will go on as before. We shall be together to-day and we shall part to-morrow; and for the rest of my life I shall be fully occupied in resisting the temptation to cut Gaunt's throat."
Virgie decided that she was expected to laugh, and did so, but very softly.
"Don't talk like that," she begged him wistfully. "Let us be quite happy, and think about Pansy, and how wonderful it is that she should be getting well."
CHAPTER XXII
THE ROMAN VILLA
"When you and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh! but the long, long while the world shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As much as Ocean of a pebble cast.
One moment in Annihilation's Waste,
One moment of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting, and the Caravan
Draws to the dawn of nothing!—Oh, make haste!"
—Omar Khayyám.
The docility with which Gerald accepted the change of subject was completely reassuring to Virginia. His words led her to suppose that he imagined all to be well between herself and her husband. She gave herself up to fullest enjoyment of the fine weather, the swift motion, the beautiful country.
Bodiam Castle she found entrancing, and her fresh, almost childlike interest in exploring it gave Gerald a kind of pleasure hard to explain. Her unconsciousness put him upon his honour; yet it was subtly alluring, too. It urged him to find out what would happen if she could be brought face to face with the truth about herself and him.