"Wait a little," she says, gently. "Wait till you know—whatever there is to know."
"I want to know but one thing."
She smiles a little sadly.
"Oh, you think so now because you are in love with me. But in time to come, when that is passed, you will not be so easily content. If"—she hesitates a moment—"if there is to be any community between our lives, you must be quite satisfied as to my past. It is your right to be so satisfied; and were you not so, some time or other we should both be wretched."
His eyes flash with joy.
"Then——" he begins breathlessly.
"Oh! how like a man that is!" she says, sadly. "To think but of the one thing, of the one present moment, and to be ready to give all the future in pawn for it! Wait to hear everything. And first of all I must tell you that Lord Gervase also last night asked me to marry him."
"And you!"
"I shall not marry Lord Gervase. But I will not disguise from you that once I would have done so gladly, had I been free to do it."
Brandolin is silent: he changes color.