“If you accuse me of deceiving you, madame, there is no more to be said.”
“Oh, don’t speak to me so coldly; don’t look so angry! How can I think you love me when you are content to give me up?”
“Madame, I had no thought of proposing such a thing. The idea had never occurred to me for an instant.”
“Then what did you think of doing?” with renewed hope in her tone.
“I hoped, madame, that you might be content to wait——”
“Wait? Only wait? Why, that is nothing! But how long?”
Cyril hesitated, but her eager eyes compelled him to speak. “Until your son is of age,” he answered reluctantly. He had intended to break the news more gradually, but she had not permitted it. “Your regency ends as soon as he is sixteen, as you know,” he added.
“And he is just four now,” she said hopelessly. “Twelve years! I should be an old woman by that time.”
“Dearest, you will never grow old.”
“Don’t pay me compliments!” She brushed the remark aside with a gesture of bitter contempt. “Have some pity for me. Think what my life has been! Married at sixteen, and so unhappily. I know I was wrong—dreadfully wrong—in much that I did, but it was not all my fault. You know that you sometimes helped to make things harder for me yourself in those days. And then—left alone to guard my child’s kingdom for him! I am so lonely, so inexperienced, I need you to help me—and you will not do it.”