"So I bloomin' well am," said the imp--though "blooming" was not the precise word he used.

Rose took the urchin by the ear.

"Come along, embryo Socialist," he said; "there's lots to eat inside--I'll take him to the kitchen, duke, and meet you in a moment in my study. My wife's in the kitchen helping the cook. She'll see to this youngster."

The duke paid the cabmen. As he gave half-a-crown to the second man, the fellow leaned down from his box and said, "G.o.d bless you, my lord. I knew you as soon as you got into my cab. It'll be many years before you know the good you done last night. People like us know wot you done and are goin' to do. I arst you to remember that."

He gave a salute with his whip and clattered away.

The duke went into the house.

As the door closed behind him and he stood alone in the narrow hall, the final revelation, the complete realisation came to him.

Mechanically he took off his wet overcoat and bowler hat, hanging them upon the rack. He put his dripping umbrella in the stand and went upstairs to the first floor.

Rose's study was on the first floor, facing the drawing-room.

He opened the door and went in.

The room, lined with books, a working-room, was rather dark. It did not face the newly-arrived sun.

But a dancing fire burned upon the hearth, and in a chair by the side of it Mary Marriott sat alone.

Her face was pale, she wore a long, flowing tea-gown, round her feet were scattered the innumerable daily papers in which she had been reading the extraordinary chorus of praise for her triumph of the night before.

She was leaning back in a high-backed armchair covered in green Spanish leather, looking like one of Sargeant's wonderful portraits that catch up eye and heart into a sort of awe at such cunning and splendour of presentation.

The duke stopped upon the threshold for a second--only for a second. He had known what he had come to do directly he was in the house--immediately he had entered the house and felt the influence which pervaded it.

He went quickly up to her and sank on his knees beside her chair.

He took her white hands in his--things of carved ivory, with a soul informing them. An hour ago he had held another pair of hands as beautiful as these.

Her face flushed deeply, her eyes grew wide, her lips parted. She tried to draw her hands away.

The words burst from her lips as if she had no power to control them.

Her soul spoke, her heart spoke; it was an absolute avowal. But conscience, her sense of right and duty, her high thought for him and for herself spoke also.

"No, no! It is dishonourable, you are vowed!"

He held her fast, the strong male impulse dominated her, she was sick to death with surrender.

"But you love me, Mary?"

"Yes!--oh, what am I saying? G.o.d help me!--go, for you are a gentleman, and must preserve our hearts unstained!"

"Darling!" he cried, "G.o.d is with us. I break no troth! All that is over and done--I am free, I am yours."

He had her little hands in his, tight, close--ah, close!

Swift, pa.s.sionate words come from his lips, fierce loving words caught up in sobs, broken with the hot tears of happiness in that he is so blessed and she so dear!

Her face, in its supreme loveliness, its tenderness, its joy, is turned full to his now.

The river of his speech rushes down upon her heart, surging over her.

His words catch her up upon their flood, her will seems to her merged in his, she swoons with love.

For her! For her--this wonder is for her! It is an echo from the love of the august parents in the sweet garden of Eden.

Gone is the world, the world in which she has always moved. Gone are ideals and causes, gone are art and triumph, homage and success!

Gone--vanished utterly away--while her own lover holds her hands in his.

She bent her lovely head. No longer did she look up into her lover's face with happy eyes. A deep flush suffused her face and the white column of her neck.

"So you see, dearest--best, I had to tell you. This is the moment when the love that throngs and swells over a man's heart bursts all bonds of repression and surges out in a great flood. Oh! darling! there has never been any one like you--there will never be any one like you again! My love and my lady, dare I ask you to be mine? Oh, I don't know--I can't say! I kneel before you as a man kneels before a shrine. I wonder that I have even words to speak to you, so peerless, so gracious, and so beautiful!"

His voice dropped and broke for a moment. He could say no more. Mary said no word. The firelight made flickering gleams in the great ma.s.ses of dead-black hair. The wonderful face was hidden by the white hands which she had withdrawn from his.

His own strong hands were clasped upon her knees.

They shook and trembled violently.

What was she thinking? How did she receive his words?--his winged and fiery words. He knelt there in an agony of doubt.

Then, in one swift access of pa.s.sion, his mood changed to one of greater power.

She was a woman, and therefore to be won! The clear, strong thought came down upon him like fire from heaven. He knew then that he was her conqueror, the man she must have to be her mate, her strength, her lover!

His strong arms were round her. They held her close. "Darling!" he whispered, "my arms are the home for you. That is what the old Roman poet said. Horace said it in the vineyards and the sun. I say it now.

See, you are mine, mine!--only mine! You shall never break away, my own, incomparable lady and love!"

The whole world went away from her and was no more. She only knew, in a super-sensual ecstasy, that his kisses fell upon her cheek like a hot summer wind.

She found a little voice, a little, crushed, happy voice.

"But you are a duke, you are so much that is great! I am only Mary Marriott, the actress!"

"You are only the supreme genius of the stage. I am the greatest man in the world because you love me. Mary, it is just like that--and that is all."

She kissed him. He knew the supreme moment. All life, all love, all nature were revealed to him in one flash of joy for which there is no name.

Both of them heard an echo of the harps that the saints were playing in another world.

The whole heavenly orchestra was sounding an accompaniment to their story.

"Love!"

"Love!"