Then, after a pause, he whispered in her ear,—
'I love you!'
And she held up her lips to him again.
'After all,' she said, 'we're only human beings. We can't help it. I think—'
She hesitated; what she was going to say had something of the anti-climax in it.
'I think—it would be very silly if—if we threw ourselves in the horrid canal.'
'Valentia, do you mean—?'
She smiled charmingly as she answered,—
'What you will, Ferdinand.'
Again he took both her hands, and, bending down, kissed them.... But this time she lifted him up to her and kissed him on the lips.