You see, I'd promised your father the day
before--of course I was only a younger son then--that I wouldn't say
anything about realising _my_ ideal until I had realised his, and
so----"
"And so I might have gone to Europe with Uncle Russell's millions to buy
that man Byfleet's coronet, and pay the price----"
"Don't, Zaidie, don't! That is quite too horrible to think of, and as
for the coronet, well, I think I can give you one about as good as his,
and one that doesn't want re-gilding. Good Lord, fancy you married to a
thing like that! What could have made you think of it?"
"I didn't think," she said angrily; "I didn't think and I didn't feel.
Of course I thought that I'd dropped right out of your life, and after
that I didn't care. I was mad right through, and I'd made up my mind to
do what others did--take a title and a big position, and have the
outside as bright as I could get it, whatever the inside might be like.
I'd made up my mind to be a society queen abroad, and a miserable woman
at home--and, Lenox, thank God and you, that I wasn't!"
Then there was another interlude, and at the end of it Redgrave said:
"Wait till we've finished our honeymoon in space, and come back to
earth. You won't want any coronets then, although you'll have one, for
all the lands of earth won't hold another woman like yourself--your own
sweet self! Of course it doesn't now, but--there, you know what I mean.
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