“Yes—­what are the buts?” his voice trembled a little.

“Love seems to me to be a wild thing, a raging, tearing passion—­Can it ever be just tender and kind?”

“I wish you would let me prove to you that it can.”

She looked into his face gravely, and there was nothing but honest question in her violet eyes.

“To what end?” she asked.

“I would like you to marry me.”  He had said it now when he had not intended to yet, and he was pale as death.

She shrank from him a little.

“But surely you know that I am not free!”

“I hoped I—­believed that you can make yourself so—­if you knew how I love you!  I have never really loved any woman before in my life.  I always thought they should be only recreations—­but the moment I saw you, my whole opinions changed.”

She grew troubled.

“I wish you had not said this to me,” she faltered.  “I—­do not know that I wish to change my life.  I could, of course, be free, I suppose—­if I wanted to be—­but—­I am not sure.  What would it mean if I listened to you?  Tell me!  I am sometimes very lonely—­and I like you so much.”

“I want to make you feel more than that, but I will be content with whatever you will give me.  I do not care one atom what dark page is in your past, I know it can have been nothing of your own fault, and if it were, I should not care—­I only care for you—­Sabine—­will you not tell me that you will try to let me make you happy.  It would mean that, that I should devote my whole life to making you happy.”

“A woman should be contented with that, surely,” she said.  And if Henry Fordyce had had his usual critical wits about him unclouded by love, he would have smiled his cynical smile and have said to himself: 

“The spark is not lit, my friend; her voice lacks enthusiasm and her brows are calm,” but he was like all lovers—­blind—­and only saw and heard what could comfort his heart, and so caught at the straw with delight.

“Whatever you asked I would give you.  Only say that you will let me set about helping you to be free at once.”

Mrs. Howard, however, had not gone this far in her imaginings—­the idea had started in her brain, no doubt, but it had not matured yet, and all was hesitancy.

“I cannot promise anything.  You must give me time to think, Lord Fordyce.”

“Dearest, of course I will—­but you will take steps to make yourself free—­will you not?  I have not asked, and I will not ask you a single question, only that you will tell me when I really may hope.”

His voice was deep with feeling, and his distinguished, clever face was eager and full of devotion, as they turned an abrupt corner, and there came face to face with two of their American acquaintances in the hotel.