She flies into his arms.
"It is terrible when you are annoyed with me, Carol. I should like you to think everything I do or say perfection. But then we cannot have all we want in life, and especially such a delightful life as ours. Do you know, however deeply you love, however constant you may prove, you can never realise your ideal. It exists alone in the realms of fancy; it is as unsubstantial as a dream—in fact, it is a dream!"
"Have I disappointed you then?" he asks, with a wounded look.
"Oh, no," raising her eyebrows at the bare idea. "I meant it just the other way—that I have failed to please you in everything. An ideal has no fault, and I appear full of errors. An ideal is something good, holy, perfect. I am bad, unreasonable, foolish."
"You certainly have a way of making a fellow feel a cur without meaning it."
"Have I?" says Eleanor simply.
"Do you ever long to be back in London?" asks Quinton suddenly.
"No—a thousand times no! It is a city of destruction, a hell of iniquity, Satan and the Savoy, his satellites Giddy Mounteagle, and——"
"Me!"
"Carol," with deep reproach in her tone, "though my life here with you is one which the 'Elizabeths' of Society shun and condemn, I believe, in the peaceful atmosphere, the blessed quiet, and sweet unfretful days, I have been a better woman. When I think of the daily quarrels in Richmond, the frivolous worldly conversations of Giddy and her set, it soothes all suspicion of regret in my heart. Love is my only law, and this is described as chief among virtues."