the fire, and stood there with his back turned to her.  Violet, when she found herself thus deserted, retreated to a sofa, and sat herself down.  She had no negative to produce now in answer to the violent assertion which he had pronounced as to his own success.  It was true.  She had doubted, and doubted,—­and still doubted.  But now she must doubt no longer.  Of one thing she was quite sure.  She could love him.  As things had now gone, she would make him quite happy with assurances on that subject.  As to that other question,—­that fearful question, whether or not she could trust him,—­on that matter she had better at present say nothing, and think as little, perhaps, as might be.  She had taken the jump, and therefore why should she not be gracious to him?  But how was she to be gracious to a lover who stood there with his back turned to her?

After the interval of a minute or two he remembered himself, and turned round.  Seeing her seated, he approached her, and went down on both knees close at her feet.  Then he took her hands again, for the third time, and looked up into her eyes.

“Oswald, you on your knees!” she said.

“I would not bend to a princess,” he said, “to ask for half her throne; but I will kneel here all day, if you will let me, in thanks for the gift of your love.  I never kneeled to beg for it.”

“This is the man who cannot make speeches.”

“I think I could talk now by the hour, with you for a listener.”

“Oh, but I must talk too.”

“What will you say to me?”

“Nothing while you are kneeling.  It is not natural that you should kneel.  You are like Samson with his locks shorn, or Hercules with a distaff.”

“Is that better?” he said, as he got up and put his arm round her waist.

“You are in earnest?” she asked.

“In earnest.  I hardly thought that that would be doubted.  Do you not believe me?”

“I do believe you.  And you will be good?”

“Ah,—­I do not know that.”

“Try, and I will love you so dearly.  Nay, I do love you dearly.  I do.  I do.”

“Say it again.”

“I will say it fifty times,—­till your ears are weary with it";—­and she did say it to him, after her own fashion, fifty times.

“This is a great change,” he said, getting up after a while and walking about the room.

“But a change for the better;—­is it not, Oswald?”

“So much for the better that I hardly know myself in my new joy.  But, Violet, we’ll have no delay,—­will we?  No shilly-shallying.  What is the use of waiting now that it’s settled?”

“None in the least, Lord Chiltern.  Let us say,—­this day twelvemonth.”

“You are laughing at me, Violet.”

“Remember, sir, that the first thing you have to do is to write to your father.”

He instantly went to the writing-table and took up paper and pen.  “Come along,” he said.  “You are to dictate it.”  But this she refused to do, telling him that he must write his letter to his father out of his own head, and out of his own heart.  “I cannot write it,” he said, throwing down the pen.  “My blood is in such a tumult that I cannot steady my hand.”