“I had imagined it pretty well,” replied Irene.

“Yes, one does.”

Under common circumstances, Arnold would have scornfully denied the possibility of such imagination.  He felt most unpleasantly tame.

“You wouldn’t care to make your home out yonder?”

“Heaven forbid!”

This was better.  It sounded like emphatic rejection of Trafford Romaine, and probably was meant to sound so.

“I myself,” he pursued absently, “shall always live in England.  If I know myself, I can be of most service at the centre of things.  Parliament, when the moment arrives——­”

“The moment when you can be most mischievous?” said Irene, with a glance at him.

“That’s how you put it.  Yes, most mischievous.  The sphere for mischief is growing magnificent.”

He talked, without strict command of his tongue, just to gain time; spoke of expanding Britain, and so on, a dribble of commonplaces.  Irene moved as if to rejoin her company.

“Don’t go just yet—­I want you—­now and always.”

Sheer nervousness gave his voice a tremor as if of deep emotion.  These simple words, which had burst from him desperately, were the best he could have uttered—­Irene stood with her eyes on the darkening horizon.

“We know each other pretty well,” he continued, “and the better we know each other, the more we find to talk about.  It’s a very good sign—­don’t you think?  I can’t see how I’m to get along without you, after this journey.  I don’t like to think of it, and I won’t think of it I Say there’s no need to.”

Her silence, her still attitude, had restored his courage.  He spoke at length like himself, with quiet assurance, with sincerity; and again it was the best thing he could have done.

“I am not quite sure, Mr. Jacks, that I think about it in the same way.”

Her voice was subdued to a very pleasant note, but it did not tremble.

“I can allow for that uncertainty—­though I have nothing of it myself.  We shall both be in London for a month or so.  Let me see you as often as I can, and, before you leave town, let me ask whether the doubt has been overcome.”

“I hold myself free,” said Irene impulsively.

“Naturally.”

“I do you no wrong if it seems to me impossible.”

“None whatever.”

His eyes were fixed on her face, dimly beautiful in the fading shimmer from sea and sky.  Irene met his glance for an instant, and moved away, he following.

Arnold Jacks had never known a mood so jubilant.  He was saved from the terror of humiliation.  He had comported himself as behoved him, and the result was sure and certain hope.  He felt almost grateful, almost tender, towards the woman of his choice.