“Do you know why I stayed?”
“I suppose because you want to be a gay spark and taste of the pleasures of London. That is, what you men are pleased to call pleasures. I can think of no other season.”
“There is another,” I said desperately.
“Ah,” said Dolly. And in her old aggravating way she got up and stood in the window, looking out over the park. I rose and stood beside her, my very temples throbbing.
“We have no such springs at home,” she said. “But oh, I wish I were at Wilmot House to-day!”
“There is another reason,” I repeated. My voice sounded far away, like that of another. I saw the colour come into her cheeks again, slowly. The southwest wind, with a whiff of the channel salt in it, blew the curtains at our backs.
“You have a conscience, Richard,” she said gently, without turning. “So few of us have.”
I was surprised. Nor did I know what to make of that there were so many meanings.
“You are wild,” she continued, “and impulsive, as they say your father was. But he was a man I should have honoured. He stood firm beside his friends. He made his enemies fear him. All strong men must have enemies, I suppose. They must make them.”
I looked at her, troubled, puzzled, but burning at her praise of Captain Jack.