There is a horrible wave of all this
sort of thing going on to-day in many places, and I am afraid,"
he concluded, "that a great many of our very nicest young women
are caught up in it."
"Guilty," she confessed. "Now cure me."
"I could point out the promised land, but how, could I lead you
to it?" he answered.
"You don't like me well enough," she sighed.
"I like you better than you believe," he assured her, slackening
his speed a little. "We have met, I suppose, a dozen times in
our lives. I have danced with you here and there, talked
nonsense once, I remember, at a musical reception--"
"I tried to flirt with you then," she interrupted.
He nodded.
"I was in the midst of a great case," he said, "and everything
that happened to me outside it was swept out of my mind day by
day. What I was going to say is that I have always liked you,
from the moment when your mother presented me to you at your
first dance."
"I wish you'd told me so," she murmured.
"It wouldn't have made any difference," he declared. "I wasn't
in a position to think of a duke's daughter, in those days. I
don't suppose I am now."
"Try," she begged hopefully.
He smiled back at her. The reawakening of her sense of humour
was something.
"Too late," he regretted. "During the last month or so the thing
has come to me which we all look forward to, only I don't think
fate has treated me kindly.
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