"How can I? You are so--wonderful!"
At this the rich colour deepened in her cheek and her eyes grew
ineffably tender.
"And you," she murmured, "you are still my Peregrine of the Silent
Places, the gentleman who stooped to teach me that love could be--a
holy thing--"
From the distance stole the sound of music and suddenly, as if
conjured up of these sweet strains, were eager gentlemen all about us,
vying with each other for the honour of escorting her down to the
ballroom.
"Miss Lovel," simpered a gallant young exquisite, his fashionably
pallid features peeping out between the silkiest of glossy whiskers,
"we are to be favahed, I think, to be charmed and delighted by your
incomparable singing--aw, how do, Vereker! Miss Lovel, you behold me a
humble ambassador, to beg, to entreat you to keep us waiting no
longer--"
"The evening is young, my lord," she answered lightly, "though your
impatience is flattering, I vow--"
"Impatience, Miss Lovel?" sighed a gorgeous being in scarlet and
epaulettes. "Impatience--haw--is quite inadequate to express
our--hum--I should say, my own sentiments; 'impatience' is a word
too--ha--altogether too feeble! For my own part I should--haw--I
should rather say we--"
"Passion, ma'm, passion!" exclaimed a square-faced gentleman in naval
blue. "Speaking as a blunt sailor, passion's the word, Miss
Lovel--passion. Passion's the only word, I think, gentlemen?"
"Indubitably!"
"Positively!"
"Per-fectly!"
Hereupon the Army retired a little discomfited but rallied
sufficiently to suggest the word "languish.
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