‘Well, you shall not,’ said Venetia, laughing.  ’I will not admire you the least; I will only think of you as a good little boy.’

‘You do not love me any longer, I see that,’ said Cadurcis.

‘Yes I do, Plantagenet.’

’You do not love me so much as you did the night before I went to Eton, and we sat over the fire?  Ah! how often I have thought of that night when I was at Athens!’ he added in a tone of emotion.

‘Dear Plantagenet,’ said Venetia, ’do not be silly.  I am in the highest spirits in the world; I am quite gay with happiness, and all because you have returned.  Do not spoil my pleasure.’

’Ah, Venetia!  I see how it is; you have forgotten me, or worse than forgotten me.’

‘Well, I am sure I do not know what to say to satisfy you,’ said Venetia.  ’I think you very unreasonable, and very ungrateful too, for I have always been your friend, Plantagenet, and I am sure you know it.  You sent me a message before you went abroad.’

‘Darling!’ said Lord Cadurcis, seizing her hand, ’I am not ungrateful, I am not unreasonable.  I adore you.  You were very kind then, when all the world was against me.  You shall see how I will pay them off, the dogs! and worse than dogs, their betters far; dogs are faithful.  Do you remember poor old Marmion?  How we were mystified, Venetia!  Little did we think then who was Marmion’s godfather.’

Venetia smiled; but she said, ’I do not like this bitterness of yours, Plantagenet.  You have no cause to complain of the world, and you magnify a petty squabble with a contemptible coterie into a quarrel with a nation.  It is not a wise humour, and, if you indulge it, it will not be a happy one.’

’I will do exactly what you wish on every subject, said Cadurcis, ’if you will do exactly what I wish on one.’

‘Well!’ said Venetia.

‘Once you told me,’ said Cadurcis, ’that you would not marry me without the consent of your father; then, most unfairly, you added to your conditions the consent of your mother.  Now both your parents are very opportunely at hand; let us fall down upon our knees, and beg their blessing.’

’O! my dear Plantagenet, I think it will be much better for me never to marry.  We are both happy now; let us remain so.  You can live here, and I can be your sister.  Will not that do?’

‘No, Venetia, it will not.’

‘Dear Plantagenet!’ said Venetia with a faltering voice, ’if you knew how much I had suffered, dear Plantagenet!’

‘I know it; I know all,’ said Cadurcis, taking her arm and placing it tenderly in his.  ’Now listen to me, sweet girl; I loved you when a child, when I was unknown to the world, and unknown to myself; I loved you as a youth not utterly inexperienced in the world, and when my rising passions had taught me to speculate on the character of women; I loved you as a man, Venetia, with that world at my feet, that world which I scorn, but which I will command;