"Nay," I answered, despairing, "I can never explain anything to you,
Dolly. Your tongue is too quick for mine."
"Why didn't you go home with your captain?" she asked mockingly.
"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.