"Oh, a month or three weeks is ample time to get clothes in."
His pulses beat hotly at the bare possibility of such a thing. To possess his Vera in so short a time seemed something too great and too wonderful to be true.
"Do not lose any more time," continued Helen, following up the impression she saw she had made upon him. "Speak to her this evening; get her to fix your wedding-day within the month; believe me, a man gets no advantage by putting things off too long; and there are dangers, too, in your case."
"Dangers! How do you mean?" he said, quickly.
"Oh, nothing particular—only she is very handsome, and she is young, and not accustomed, I dare say, to admiration. Other men may admire her as well as you."
"If they did, it could do her no harm," he answered, stiffly.
"Oh, no, of course not; but you can't keep other men from looking at her. When once she is your wife you will have her more completely to yourself."
Sir John made no particular answer to this; but when he had done dancing with Mrs. Romer, he led her back to her seat and thanked her gravely and courteously for her suggestions.
"You have done me a great service, Mrs. Romer, and I am infinitely obliged to you," he said, and then went his way to find Vera.
He was not jealous; but there was a certain uneasiness in his mind. It might be, indeed, true that others would admire and love Vera; others more worthy of her, more equally mated with her youth and loveliness; and he, he said to himself in his humility with regard to her, he had so little to offer her—nothing but his love. He knew himself to be grave and quiet; there was nothing about him to enchain her to him. He lacked brilliancy in manner and conversation; he was dull; he was, perhaps, even prosy. He knew it very well himself; but suppose Vera should find it out, and find that she had made a mistake! The bare thought of it was enough to make him shudder.