“Shall I?”
“I fancy not. You’re too human, you see; this warm, kind world is too near your heart. The great lady has nothing there but her corset; and the world—her little cold world—at her fingers’ ends, in a descending scale of chilliness. Besides, you’re too pretty.”
“To be a countess?”
“No, to be made one. You can’t melt beauty for new molds without breaking the old, you know; something goes.”
“And yet you say—marry him.”
“Well, I won’t say it,” he replied.
She had turned her head away, and was stretching over her shoulders for her wrap.
“I’m going,” she said.
He rose to put it round her, and caught the reflection in the glass of her averted eyes. They were shining with tears.