She gently extricated herself, as though she had done so that she might better turn round and look into his face.  ’Oh, my own one, who can say of himself that it would be so?  How could it be so, when you would have all the world against you?  You would be still what you are,—­with a clog round your leg while at home.  In Parliament, among your friends, at your clubs, you would be just what you are.  You would be that Lord Silverbridge who had all the good things at his disposal,—­except that he had been unfortunate in his marriage!  But what should I be?’ Though she paused he could not answer her,—­not yet.  There was a solemnity in her speech which made it necessary that he should hear her to the end.  ’I, too, have my friends in my own country.  It is not disgrace to me there that my grandfather worked on the quays.  No one holds her head higher than I do, or is more sure of being able to hold it.  I have there that assurance of esteem and honour which you have here.  I would lose it all to do you a good.  But I will not lose it all to do you an injury.’

‘I don’t know about injuries,’ he said, getting up and walking about the room.  ’But I am sure of this.  You will have to be my wife.’

’If your father will take me by the hand and say that I shall be his daughter, I will risk the rest.  Even then it might not be wise; but we love each other too well not run some peril.  Do you think I want anything better than to preside in your home, to soften you cares, to welcome your joys, to be mother perhaps of your children, and to know that you are proud that I should be so?  No, my darling.  I can see a Paradise;—­only, only, I may not be fit to enter it.  I must use some judgement better that my own, sounder, dear, than yours.  Tell the Duke what I say;—­tell him that with what language a son may use to his father.  And remember that all you ask for yourself you will ask doubly for me.’

‘I will ask him so that he cannot refuse me.’

’If you do I shall be contented.  And now go.  I have said ever so much, and I am tired.’

‘Isabel!  Oh, my love.’

’Yes; Isabel;—­your love!  I am that at any rate for the present,—­ and proud to be so as a queen.  Well, if it must be, this once,—­as I have been so hard to you.’  Then she gave him her cheek to kiss, but of course he took much more than she gave.

When he got into the street it was dark, and there was sill standing the faithful cab.  But he felt that at the present moment it would be impossible to sit still, and he dismissed the equipage.  He walked rapidly along Brook Street into Park Lane, and from thence to the park, hardly knowing whither he went in the enthusiasm of the moment.  He walked back to the Marble Arch, and thence round by the drive to the Guard House and the bridge over the Serpentine, by the Knightsbridge Barracks to Hyde Park Corner.  Though he should give up everything and go and live in her own country with her, he would marry her.