‘Easy her motion seemed, serene her air,’

she held out her hand.

‘You have come—­to beg my pardon, I hope?’ she said.

The smile she bestowed on him was an April smile, the brighter for the tears that lurked behind it; but Soane did not know that, nor, had he known it, would it have availed him.  He was utterly dazzled, conquered, subjugated by her beauty.  ‘Willingly,’ he said.  ‘But for what?’

‘Oh, for—­everything!’ she answered with supreme assurance.

‘I ask your divinity’s pardon for everything,’ he said obediently.

‘It is granted,’ she answered.  ’And—­I shall see you to-morrow, Sir George?’

‘To-morrow?’ he said.  ‘Alas, no; I shall be away to-morrow.’

He had eyes; and the startling fashion in which the light died out of her face, and left it grey and colourless, was not lost on him.  But her voice remained steady, almost indifferent.  ‘Oh!’ she said, ’you are going?’ And she raised her eyebrows.

‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘I have to go to Estcombe.’

She tried to force a laugh, but failed.  ’And you do not return?  We shall not see you again?’ she said.

‘It lies with you,’ he answered slowly.  ’I am returning to-morrow evening by the Bath road.  Will you come and meet me, Julia—­say, as far as the Manton turning?  It’s on your favourite road.  I know you stroll there every evening.  I shall be there a little after five.  If you come to-morrow, I shall know that, notwithstanding your hard words, you will take in hand the reforming of a rake—­and a ruined rake, Julia.  If you do not come—­’

He hesitated.  She had to turn away her head that he might not see the light that had returned to her eyes.  ‘Well, what then?’ she said softly.

‘I do not know.’

‘But Lady Carlisle was his wife,’ she whispered, with a swift sidelong shot from eyes instantly averted.  ’And—­you remember what you said to me—­at Oxford?  That if I were a lady, you would make me your wife.  I am not a lady, Sir George.’

‘I did not say that,’ Sir George answered quickly.

‘No!  What then?’

‘You know very well,’ he retorted with malice.

All of her cheek and neck that he could see turned scarlet.  ’Well, at any rate,’ she said, ’let us be sure now that you are talking not to Clarissa but to Pamela?’

‘I am talking to neither,’ he answered manfully.  And he stood erect, his hat in his hand; they were almost of a height.  ’I am talking to the most beautiful woman in the world,’ he said, ’whom I also believe to be the most virtuous—­and whom I hope to make my wife.  Shall it be so, Julia?’

She was trembling excessively; she used her fan that he might not see how her hand shook.  ‘I—­I will tell you to-morrow,’ she murmured breathlessly.  ‘At Manton Corner.’

‘Now!  Now!’ he said.

But she cried ‘No, to-morrow,’ and fled from him into the house, deaf, as she passed through the hall, to the clatter of dishes and the cries of the waiters and the rattle of orders; for she had the singing of larks in her ears, and her heart rose on the throb of the song, rose until she felt that she must either cry or die—­of very happiness.