He took her arm and kissed the sleeve where her heart was supposed to be.

“I’ve read that men only love while they are not sure of a woman’s love; that with every two persons it is one who loves and the other who permits himself or herself to be loved.  Is that true, Stafford?  If so, then it is I who love—­alas! poor me!”

He drew her to him and looked into her eyes with a passionate intensity.

“It’s not true,” he said, almost fiercely.  “For God’s sake don’t say such things.  They—­they hurt, and hurt badly; they leave a bitter taste in the mouth, a nasty pang behind.  And if it were true—­but it isn’t, Ida!—­it is I who love.  Good Lord! don’t you know how beautiful you are?  Haven’t you a looking-glass in your room? don’t you know that no girl that ever was born had such wonderful eyes, such beautiful hair?  Oh, my heart’s love, don’t you know how perfect you are?”

They had stopped under some trees near the ruined chapel, and she leant against one of them and looked up at him with a strange, dreamy, far-away look in her eyes which were dark as the purple amethyst.

“I never thought about it.  Am I—­do you think I am pretty?  I am glad; yes I am glad!”

“Pretty!” he laughed.  “Dearest, when I take you away from here, into the world, as my wife—­my wife—­the thought sends my blood coursing through my veins—­you will create so great a sensation that I shall be half wild with pride; I shall want to go about calling aloud:  ’She is my wife; my very own!  You may admire—­worship her, but she is mine—­belongs to me—­to unworthy Stafford Orme!’”

“Yes?” she murmured, her voice thrilling.  “You will be proud of me?  Of me, the poor little country girl who rode about the dales in a shabby habit and an old hat?  Stafford, Jessie was telling me that there is a very beautiful girl staying at the Villa at Brae Wood—­one of the visitors.  Jessie said she was lovely, and that all the men-servants, and the maids, too, were talking about her.  She must be more beautiful than I am.”

“Which of the women do you mean?” he said, indifferently, with the supreme indifference which the man who is madly in love feels for every other woman than the one of his heart.

“She is a fair girl, with blue eyes and the most wonderful hair; ‘chestnut-red with gold in it,’ as Jessie described it to me.  And she says that this girl wears the most beautiful diamonds—­I am still quoting Jessie—­and other precious stones, and that she is very ’high and mighty,’ and more haughty than any of the other ladies.  Who is it?”

“I think she must mean Miss Falconer—­Miss Maude Falconer,” said Stafford, as indifferently as before, as he smoothed one of the silken tresses on her brow, and kissed it as it lay on his finger.  “It is just the way a slave would describe her.”

“And is she very beautiful?” asked Ida.

“Yes, I suppose she is,” he said.

“You suppose!” she echoed, arching her brows, but with a frank smile about her lips, the smile of contentment at his indifference.  “Don’t you know?”