“You have a drop of Irish blood in you somewhere, my girl. Upon my word you have almost persuaded me to say ‘Agreed’ to Forrester’s proposal. But mind you, if I get in I’ll blame you. Let there be no mistake about that.” She took a hasty glance around. She saw the strategical conditions of their surroundings. She thought that when they should get a step or two beyond the little peninsula of sea wall, she could do it.... And she did. She had an arm about his neck in a moment, and he felt delightfully near strangulation. He could not cry out for help, because there were two middle-aged ladies with books and a clergyman with _The Guardian_ on the seat in the hollow of the cliff. “You are a perfect darling!” she cried. “You are doing this thing just to please me, because you know I have set my heart on it--and I _have_ set my heart on it, Jack, dear. I admit that I am ambitious, Jack, but only for you, dear--only because I know what there is in you, and I want it brought out. I want people to accept you at your true worth. My ambition is bounded by you.” He did not say anything in response to this confession. But he pressed her arm very close to him, and so they walked on in silence, until he said: “My girl, my girl, shall I tell you what I feel just now? I feel that I should like to do something to justify your belief in me. Until you began to talk to me I used to be inclined to grin at those old chaps who used to bump about in armour--Lord! the noise they made must have been like a tinker’s horse running away with a cartload of tin kettles--looking out for doughty deeds to do so that they might appear big Indians in the eyes of their ladies fair. They spelt--such of them as could spell, and there weren’t a lot--‘lady’ with an e at the end. I say I used to laugh at them and think them howling bounders; but by the Lord Henrietta! since I came to know you I’ve had just the same feeling. I tell you that I should dearly like to do something big, so that you might be able to say, ‘He did it, and he’s my husband, and it was I taught him how.’” “And you will do it--I have no fear for you, Jack. You will show people what you can do, and I shall feel--I may boast of it, too--that I have had an influence for good upon you, not for evil.” “If anybody wants to hear further of what that influence has been to me, send them along, and I’ll tell them. My dear girl, you’ve now set me a job of work to do, and if you stand by me I’ll do it.”