'Let us think,' he replied. 'Let us contrive and devise some way——'
'Enough about Armorel. Tell me now about yourself.'
'I am always the same.'
'You have come, perhaps, this afternoon,' she murmured softly, 'to bring me some new hope—Oh! Alec—at last—some hope?'
'I have no new hope to give you, child.'
Both sat in silence, looking into the firelight.
'It is seven years—seven years,' said Zoe, 'since I had my great quarrel with Philippa. She was eighteen then—and so was I—I charged her with throwing herself at your head, you know. So she did. So she does still. Why, the woman can't conceal, even now, that she loves you. I saw it in her eyes last night, I saw it in her attitude when she was talking to you. She swore after the row we had that she would never speak to me again. But you see she has broken that vow. I was eighteen then, and I was rich, a good deal richer than Philippa ever will be. When you and I became engaged I was twenty-one. That is four years ago, Alec. Yet, a year or two, and the girl you were—engaged to—will be thin and faded. For your sake, my dear boy, I hope that you will not keep her waiting very much longer before you present her to the world.'
'My dear child, could I help the smash that came—the smash and scandal? When the whole town was ringing with your father's smash and his suicide, and the ruin of I don't know how many people, was that the moment for us to step forward and take hands before the world?'
'No; you certainly could not. As a man of the world, you would have been justified in breaking off the thing—especially as it was only a day or two old.'
'I could not let you go, Zoe,' he said, with a touch of real tenderness. 'I was madly in love.'