He tried to take her hand, but she drew herself away from him with a frightened look.  She was very pale, and there was infinite distress in the dark violet eyes, which looked entreatingly, deprecatingly at her lover.

‘I dare not answer as you would like me to answer,’ she faltered, after a painful pause.  ’I am not my own mistress.  My grandmother has brought me up, devoted herself to me almost, and she has her own views, her own plans.  I dare not frustrate them!’

’She would like to marry you to a man of rank and fortune—­a man who will choose you, perhaps, because other people admire you, rather than because he himself loves you as you ought to be loved; who will choose you because you are altogether the best and most perfect thing of your year; just as he would buy a yearling at Newmarket or Doncaster.  Her ladyship means you to make a great alliances—­coronets, not hearts, are the counters for her game; but, Lesbia, would you, in the bloom and freshness of youth—­you with the pulses of youth throbbing at your heart—­lend yourself to the calculations of age which has lived its life and forgotten the very meaning of love?  Would you submit to be played as a card in the game of a dowager’s ambition?  Trust me, dearest, in the crisis of a woman’s life there is one only counsellor she should listen to, and that counsellor is her own heart.  If you love me—­as I dare to hope you do—­trust in me, hold by me, and leave the rest to Heaven.  I know that I can make your life happy.’

‘You frighten me by your impetuosity,’ said Lesbia.  ’Surely you forget how short a time we have known each other.’

’An age.  All my life before the day I saw you is a dead, dull blank as compared with the magical hours I have spent with you.’

‘I do not even know who and what you are.’

’First, I am a gentleman, or I should not be your brother’s friend.  A poor gentleman, if you like, with only my own right arm to hew my pathway through the wood of life to the temple of fortune; but trust me, only trust me, Lesbia, and I will so hew my path as to reach that temple.  Look at me, love.  Do I look like a man born to fail?’

She looked up at him shyly, with eyes that were dim with tears.  He looked like a demi-god, tall, straight as the pine trunks amongst which he was standing, a frame formed for strength and activity, a face instinct with mental power, dark eyes that glowed with the fire of intellect and passion.  The sunlight gave an almost unearthly radiance to the clear dark of his complexion, the curly brown hair cut close to the finely shaped head, the broad brow and boldly modelled features.

Lesbia felt in her heart that such a man must be destined for success, born to be a conqueror in all strifes, a victor upon every field.

’Have I the thews and sinews of a man doomed to be beaten in the battle?’ he asked her.  ’No, dearest; Heaven meant me to succeed; and with you to fight for I shall not be beaten by adverse fortune.  Can you not trust Providence and me?’