"A hundred a year will help you there in your own home."
Then she sat upright and there was something in her lovely little
countenance he had never seen before. It was actually determination.
"I have heard," she said, "of poor girls who were driven--by
starvation to--to go on the streets. I--would go ANYWHERE before
I would go back there."
"Anywhere!" he repeated, his own countenance expressing--or rather
refusing to express something as new as the thing he had seen in
her own.
"Anywhere!" she cried and then she did what he had thought her on
the verge of doing a few minutes earlier--she fell at his feet and
embraced his knees. She clung to him, she sobbed, her pretty hair
loosened itself and fell about her in wild but enchanting disorder.
"Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe!" she cried as
she had cried in the hall.
He rose and endeavoured to disengage himself as he had done before.
This time with less success because she would not let him go. He
had the greatest possible objection to scenes.
"Mrs. Lawless--Feather--I beg you will get up," he said.
But she had reached the point of not caring what happened if she
could keep him. He was a gentleman--he had everything in the world.
What did it matter?
"I have no one but you and--and you always seemed to like me, I
would do anything--ANYONE asked me, if they would take care of me.
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