"Sit down, Gerald," said Selwyn, removing the cigar from his lips; but:
"I haven't time," said the boy. "I simply want to know what you'd do if you loved a girl whose mother means to send her to London to get rid of me and marry her to that yawning Elliscombe fellow who was over here. . . . What would you do? She's too young to stand much of a siege in London—some Englishman will get her if he persists—and I mean to make her love me."
"Oh! Doesn't she?"
"Y-es. . . . You know how young girls are. Yes, she does—now. But a year or two with that crowd—and the duchess being good to her, and Elliscombe yawning and looking like a sleepy Lohengrin or some damned prince in his Horse Guards' helmet!—Selwyn, I can see the end of it. She can't stand it; she's too young not to get over it. . . . So, what would you do?"
"Who is she, Gerald?"
"I won't tell you."
"Oh! . . . Of course she's the right sort?"
"Perfectly."
"Young?"
"Very. Out last season."