“Yes, I am wicked,” I said, “but I never will be again--only just
enough to make you always love me, because Lady Ver says security makes
yawns. But even wicked people can love with a great, great love, and
that can keep them good. Oh! if he only knew how utterly I love you,
Robert, I am sure, sure, he would be kind to us!”
“Well, how shall we tell him?”
Then a thought came to me, and I felt all over a desperate thrill of
excitement.
“Will you do nothing until to-morrow?” I said. “I have an idea which I
will tell to no one. Let us go back to Claridge’s now, and do not come
and see me again until to-morrow at twelve. Then if this has failed, we
will say good-bye. It is a desperate chance.”
“And you won’t tell me what it is?”
“No--please trust me--it is my life as well as yours, remember.”
“My queen!” he said. “Yes, I will do that, or anything else you wish,
only _never, never_ good-bye. I am a man after all, and have numbers
of influential relations. I can do something else in life but just
be a Guardsman, and we shall get enough money to live quite happily
on--though we might not be very grand people. I will never say
good-bye--do you hear. Promise me you will never say it either.”