“And you believe them?” she asked quickly. “You, my friend, believe all these lying inventions of my enemies?”
“I believe nothing of which I have no proof.”
“Then you believe in what is really proved?”
“Yes.”
“In that case you must believe that, even though I possess all the defects which you have enumerated, I nevertheless love you?”
“In woman’s true love,” he said slowly, emphasising every word, “there is mingled the trusting dependence of a child, for she always looks up to man as her protector and her guide. Man, let him love as he may, has an existence which lies outside the orbit of his affections. He has his worldly interests, his public character, his ambition, his competition with other men—but the woman of noble mind centres all in that one feeling of affection.”
“Really?” She laughed flippantly, toying with her bracelets. “This is a most erudite discourse. It would no doubt edify the House if one night you introduced the subject of love. You’ve grown of late to be quite a philosopher, my dear Dudley. Politics and that horrid old Foreign Office have entirely spoilt you.”
“No, you misunderstand me,” he went on, deeply in earnest. “I merely want to place before you the utter folly of your present actions—all these flirtations about which people in our rank are always talking.”
“Ah!” she laughed; “because you’re jealous. Somebody has been telling you, no doubt, that the Grand-Duke was always at my side at Fernhurst, and probably embellished the story until it forms a very nice little tit-bit of scandal.”
“Well, is it not true that this foreigner was with you so constantly that it became a matter of serious comment?”