"Ronald! Is that your House of Commons manner when the Opposition won't be still?"
He was a man whom it was notoriously, exceedingly difficult to irritate. But he was beginning then to be conscious of an unwonted feeling of irritation.
"I am simply here, Lady Griswold, to inform you that I propose to marry."
"Propose to marry! Is that the way in which you speak of it? And you do really think that it is news to me--after all your letters? Ronald! Ronald!"
It was inconceivable that a woman could be such a fool. Yet it was so. There was a rapturous suggestion in her voice which, literally, frightened him. The devil fly away with those letters of his! If ever he even dropped so much as a shadow of a hint again! She actually began to woo him. She came to him, she took both his hands in hers, she looked into his eyes--how she looked into his eyes! And he--he almost wished that he had no eyes to look into.
"Ronald! Ronald!" With what an unspoken eloquence of meaning she pronounced his name. "News to me? Rather--I will say it, after all these years--tidings of great joy. News to me! I will make you my confession, sir, in full." Why did he not nip her confession in the bud? Why did he stand there as if spellbound? He was speechless. A bolt seemed to have come out of the blue, and to have struck him dumb. And she went on,--
"For eighteen years, my lord, I have dreamed of this--this one hour. I cannot tell whether I am a wicked woman, or whether I am not. I tell you just how it has been with me. I have done what seemed to me to be my duty, from day to day, from month to month, yes, from year to year, and I do not think that anyone has ever heard me once repine. But all the time it has seemed that I, my own self, have been far away, and I watched and waited till I could join my own self--where you were. I knew that this day would come. I knew it, with a sure and a certain knowledge, all along. You see, Ronald, I knew you. I think it is that knowledge which kept me young. For I am young. I still am young, Ronald, in every sense. Indeed, I have sometimes feared that I am too young to be a fitting mate for a leader among men. Ronald, love of my life, speak to me, my dear."
He was looking away--down at the floor. He was standing in front of her, wearing the hang-dog air of a convicted criminal. He spoke to her.
"It is Inez." That is what he said.
She did not catch his meaning. Perhaps she did not distinctly catch his words. "Inez? What is Inez? Inez has nothing to do with us, my dear."