When I said that, her arms dropped to her sides; the smile vanished; her face went white. It hurt me to see how she changed. I asked myself if there was any game going in which the stakes were worth all this.
'Don't you--don't you know me, James? I'm--I'm Mary.'
'Mary?' How the very name rang in my heart as I repeated it. 'I'm afraid I'm hardly entitled to address a stranger by her Christian name.'
'A stranger? I'm--I'm your wife.'
'My wife?' Lord! how glad I was to know it. Never man had one so good. 'I'm afraid that, unlike many men who are more fortunate, that's an article I don't possess.'
I could see that she pressed her finger-tips into her palms. I had never seen her look more lovely than she did then, in her bewilderment and distress. My heart cried out to me to take her and to hold her fast. But I didn't dare.
'What does it mean? You know my children, and you don't know me?'
'Your children?' I was still holding Pollie. On this I put her down. 'This young lady and gentlemen address me as dad, but I fear that that is an honourable appellation to which I have no title. There would seem to be a singular confusion. It appears that there must be some one in existence who has an uncomfortable resemblance to myself. Already this morning my identity has been mistaken. I was addressed as Mr.--really at the moment I forget the name, it was rather an uncommon one, something like--Babbincombe.'
'Do you deny me, James?'
'I don't see, madam, how I can be said to deny you when this is the first time I have had the pleasure of encountering your charming personality. Nor is my name James. I am the Marquis of Twickenham.'