“No,” laughed she.
“And you will not forget it?”
“Never,” said the child, shaking her head. “You shall see if I do.”
“Lucy is to be my wife,” cried he, turning to Madame Vine. “It is a bargain, and we have both promised. I mean to wait for her till she is old enough. I like her better than anybody else in the world.”
“And I like him,” spoke up Miss Lucy. “And it’s all true.”
Lucy was a child—it may almost be said an infant—and the viscount was not of an age to render important such avowed passions. Nevertheless, the words did thrill through the veins of the hearer. She spoke, she thought, not as Madame Vine would have spoken and thought, but as the unhappy mother, the ill-fated Lady Isabel.
“You must not say these things to Lucy. It could never be.”
Lord Vane laughed.
“Why?” asked he.
“Your father and mother would not approve.”