‘Oh!  Percy, Percy, are we mad?’

’Not mad.  We take what is ours.  Tell me, have I ever, ever disrespected you?  You were sacred to me; and you are, though now the change has come.  Look back on it—­it is time lost, years that are dust.  But look forward, and you cannot imagine our separation.  What I propose is plain sense for us two.  Since Rovio, I have been at your feet.  Have I not some just claim for recompense?  Tell me!  Tony!’

The sweetness of the secret name, the privileged name, in his mouth stole through her blood, melting resistance.

She had consented.  The swarthy flaming of her face avowed it even more than the surrender of her hand.  He gained much by claiming little:  he respected her, gave her no touches of fright and shame; and it was her glory to fall with pride.  An attempt at a caress would have awakened her view of the whitherward:  but she was treated as a sovereign lady rationally advised.

‘Is it since Rovio, Percy?’

‘Since the morning when you refused me one little flower.’

‘If I had given it, you might have been saved!’

‘I fancy I was doomed from the beginning.’

‘I was worth a thought?’

‘Worth a life! worth ten thousand!’

’You have reckoned it all like a sane man:—­family, position, the world, the scandal?’

’All.  I have long known that you were the mate for me.  You have to weather a gale, Tony.  It won’t last.  My dearest! it won’t last many months.  I regret the trial for you, but I shall be with you, burning for the day to reinstate you and show you the queen you are.’

‘Yes, we two can have no covert dealings, Percy,’ said Diana.  They would be hateful—­baseness!  Rejecting any baseness, it seemed to her that she stood in some brightness.  The light was of a lurid sort.  She called on her heart to glory in it as the light of tried love, the love that defied the world.  Her heart rose.  She and he would at a single step give proof of their love for one another—­and this kingdom of love—­how different from her recent craven languors!—­this kingdom awaited her, was hers for one word; and beset with the oceans of enemies, it was unassailable.  If only they were true to the love they vowed, no human force could subvert it:  and she doubted him as little as of herself.  This new kingdom of love, never entered by her, acclaiming her, was well-nigh unimaginable, in spite of the many hooded messengers it had despatched to her of late.  She could hardly believe that it had come.

‘But see me as I am,’ she said; she faltered it through her direct gaze on him.

‘With chains to strike off?  Certainly; it is done,’ he replied.

’Rather heavier than those of the slave-market!  I am the deadest of burdens.  It means that your enemies, personal—­if you have any, and political—­you have numbers; will raise a cry . . . .  Realize it.  You may still be my friend.  I forgive the bit of wildness.’