‘And why not—­why shouldn’t you go?  I wish you would,’ she added; and the light in her grey eyes was malign.

’You’re joking?  You surely don’t mean what you say.  I thought you said you loved me.’

’Yes, my dear Harry, that is the very reason.  We love each other, therefore I know I can trust you.’

He pressed the hand—­the silken skin, the palm delicately moist—­in recognition of her kind words.

’I wouldn’t go for anything in the world.  I hate those people.  ’Pon my word, I don’t think anything would tempt me to spend a week with them in the country.’

‘Yes; I could.’

The Marquis laughed.  ’Yes, you could—­you could tempt me to do anything.  But why should you want me to go and spend a week with them in Galway?’

‘Because, dear, they were rude to me; because,’ she added, casting down her eyes—­’because they tried to buy you from me.  That is why I should like to humiliate them.’

The enchantment of the Marquis was completed, and he said: 

’What, a whole week away from you! a whole week with Mrs. Barton!  I could not endure it.’

‘What, not for my sake?’

‘Anything for your sake, darling.’  He clasped her in his arms, and then they lapsed into silence that to him was even sweeter than the kiss she had given him.  Love’s deepest delight is the ineffable consciousness of our own weakness.  We drink the sweetened cup in its entirety when, having ceased to will, we abandon ourselves with the lethal languors of the swimmer to the vague depths of dreams.  And it was past midnight when the Marquis left Fitzwilliam Place.  The ladies accompanied him downstairs; their hands helped him to his hat and coat, and then the lock slipped back sharply, and in the gloom, broken in one spot by the low-burning gas, the women wondered.

‘Oh, mamma, mamma, mamma!  I am so happy!’ the girl exclaimed, and, weeping passionately, she threw herself for rest upon Mrs. Scully’s arms.

’Yes, my child; you have been very good, you have made me very happy.  You’ll be a marchioness.  Who would have thought I’d have lived to see all this honour when I served in the little shop at Galway!’

At the mention of the shop Violet recovered her composure, and mother and daughter listened to the receding footfalls.

‘I wonder if he is happy,’ Violet murmured; ’as happy as I am.  For I do like him.  He is a good sort.’

‘Your happiness is a different happiness,’ Mrs. Scully answered.

Like a flowering tree, a luxuriant joy bloomed in the Marquis’s heart; in its shade and fragrance his thoughts lay supinely; and, a prey to many floating and fanciful imaginings, he walked onwards through the darkness.  In the lowering skies he saw the fair face that had led him to the verge on which he now stood.

‘Was anybody as happy as he?  And what did his happiness mean?’ he asked himself.

Shades flitted across yellow window-panes, and he remembered he had received an invitation for this very ball.