"Nothing will make any
difference. We are past the days when fathers or even mothers
count seriously in the things that exist between two people like
you and me, who have felt life. Whatever your father may be,
whatever he may turn out to be, you are the woman I love--you are
the woman who is going to be my wife."
She leaned towards him for a moment.
"You have an amazing gift," she whispered, "of saying just the
thing one loves to hear in the way that convinces."
Dinner was served to them in the smaller of the two dining-rooms,
an exquisite meal, made more wonderful still by the wine, which
Hedges himself dispensed with jealous care. The presence of
servants, with its restraining influence upon conversation, was
not altogether unwelcome to Francis. He and Margaret had had so
little opportunity for general conversation that to discuss other
than personal subjects in this pleasant, leisurely way had its
charm. They spoke of music, of which she knew far more than he;
of foreign travel, where they met on common ground, for each had
only the tourist's knowledge of Europe, and each was anxious for
a more individual acquaintance with it. She had tastes in books
which delighted him, a knowledge of games which promised a common
resource. It was only whilst they were talking that he realised
with a shock how young she was, how few the years that lay
between her serene school-days and the tempestuous years of her
married life.
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