‘For God’s sake, tell me—that is, if it can be told.’
White fell back in his chair, and let his hands drop heedlessly by his side, ‘It cannot be told. My poor darling! It is something in her past life.’
There he paused in despair. But Forster, himself trembling violently, touched him on the arm.
‘Her past life? What is that to me? I know nothing of it, and I seek to know nothing. If there is any page in her life she wishes me not to read, let her close the book; I will never ask her to open it. I love her too absolutely not to be content with what she is, the sweetest and purest woman I have ever known.’
‘You think her pure? So she is, God knows.’
‘I think she is worthy to be a queen. I think I am not worthy to tie her shoe-strings. But this does not prevent me loving her; it only makes my love something like idolatry. Don’t think that it is mere infatuation. I know my own mind well, and I shall never change.’
More followed in the same strain, but Forster did not succeed in eliciting any further explanation.
So White remained the very picture of misery, and, with his eyes full of tears, wrung the merchant’s hand again and again, uttering wild professions of personal attachment.
Some hours later they parted. White, with somewhat unsteady steps, for he had drunk liberally, made his way to his favourite club. Forster walked rapidly to Piccadilly, and, entering an omnibus, rode in sad reverie to South Kensington.
A footman in gorgeous livery admitted the plain man into his princely home; and along a lobby hung with choice pictures, up a staircase ornamented with some of the most perfect specimens of modern sculpture, he found his way to the drawing-room, where his sister Margaret was sitting in solitary state.