Lord Cameron saw that she was deeply agitated, and, seating himself beside her, he began to talk of subjects to distract her mind from herself and their new relations to each other.
He possessed great tact and a wonderful fund of anecdote and incident, and before he left her presence he had actually made her laugh over a droll account of an experience of the previous day.
After that he enticed her out for a drive about the beautiful bay, and having once achieved this much, it was comparatively easy to plan something for her pleasure and amusement every day.
While Violet was with him she could not fail to feel the charm of his presence, and she would, for the time, forget herself and her trouble; but the moment she was alone, the old aversion to the thought of becoming his wife, together with all her love and grief for Wallace, would revive to make her wretched.
One day, as they were nearing their hotel after a longer drive than usual, and Violet had seemed to enjoy herself more than she was wont to do, Lord Cameron ventured to broach a subject that lay very near his heart.
"Mrs. Mencke informs me that she and her husband are contemplating a tour of the Alps this summer," he remarked, by way of introduction.
Violet looked up surprised. She had not heard her sister say anything about such a tour, and there was nothing that she dreaded so much, in the present weakened state of her mind and body, as being taken about to various fashionable resorts and to be obliged to meet gay pleasure-seekers.
She sighed heavily, but made no other reply to Lord Cameron's information.
"You feel that it would be rather hard for you to make such a trip, do you not?" her companion inquired, gently. Then, without waiting for a reply, he went on: "How would you like, instead, to come with me to the Isle of Wight and spend a quiet, restful summer, interspersed perhaps, with a little yachting now and then?"
A great shock went through Violet at this, as she realized that he wanted her to become his wife immediately and go home with him.