“The boy she fancied was in love with her married his own sweetheart without delay and Hortense ended it in a foolish, mad fashion! You know how she was—how such women are—”
“Better out of the game,” Hobart commented grimly.
“It touches me, not the tragedy itself, but the wasted life.... Bliss, do you know that nearly anything under the sun can be readjusted satisfactorily if people will only be honest regarding the facts concerning it? You call fame the violet crown and I call the stay-at-homes the gray angels; you say true artists are a vanguard—fine sounding names! But there is nothing new about it, is there? The idea of substituting one idea, theory or name for another to act as a rejuvenation of the brain and keep inspiration of the heart aglow began before the days of the pyramids! It is necessary to keep interest top hole and while the basis of it is almost hallucination and it may tend towards madness, the advantages do outweigh the tendencies. The name—the violet crown,” she caressed the locket with her hands, “spurs me on to be a gray angel and that name has comforted Polly, Lorraine, Ernestine—and will many others. To belong to the vanguard of civilization—what strange intoxication is there in the title!—to battle with art-intrigues,—romantic phrase! I could never be without it. Bliss, what oddities human beings are—”
“And now, will you marry me?” he asked meekly.
“Lissa has failed to find a duke and the Hotel Particular is for sale; she staked everything on winning a title or a patroness. What will become of her?”
“Unfortunately life travels so much more swiftly than justice, I am afraid she may find another loophole of escape ... such people often do.... But will you marry me?”
“And I find myself growing as particular as Dorothy, wife of Sir Thomas Brown, who wished her ‘shewes to be eythar pinke or blewe,’” she continued, “for I cannot—”
“I will not be cheated of another moment—answer me.”
“You love me, that way?” she asked gravely.
“All ways. Surely, Miss Clergy’s promise—”