'Eleanor—really!—am I a "three-tailed bashaw"?'
'No. But you are absorbing—despotic—fastidious. You might break that girl's heart in a thousand ways—before you knew you'd done it. You don't give; you take.'
'And you—hit hard!' he said, under his breath, resuming his walk.
She sat white and motionless, her eyes sparkling. Presently he stood still before her, his features working with emotion.
'If I am incapable of love—and unworthy of hers,' he said in a stifled voice,—'if that's your verdict—if that's what you tell her—I'd better go. I know your power—don't dispute your right to form a judgment—I'll go. The carriage is there. Good-bye.'
She lifted her face to his with a quick gesture.
'She loves you!'—she said, simply.
Manisty fell back, with a cry.
There was a silence. Eleanor's being was flooded with the strangest, most ecstatic sense of deliverance. She had been her own executioner; and this was not death—but life!
She rose. And speaking in her natural voice, with her old smile, she said—'I must go back to her—she will have missed me. Now then—what shall we do next?'