'I am no milky, modest, obedient youth, Constance. You know me well. Have you nothing to say to me?' In the novels, the young man who hears the first word of love generally sinks on his knees, and with downcast eyes and blushing face reverentially kisses the hand so graciously offered to him. In ordinary life they had to wait until they were asked. Yet this young man was actually asking--boldly asking--for the word of love--what else could he mean?--and instead of blushing, was fixedly regarding Constance with fearless eyes. 'It seems idle now to say it,' she replied, stammering and hesitating--though in novels the woman always spoke up in a clear, calm, and resolute accents; 'but, Edward, had the Chancellor not been notoriously the personal friend and creature of the Duchess, I should have gone to her long ago. They were schoolfellows; she owes her promotion to the Duchess; she would most certainly have rewarded her Grace by refusing my request.' 'Yet you are a Carlyon and I am a Chester. On what plea?' 'Cousinship, incompatibility of temper, some legal quibble--who knows? However, that is past; forget, my poor Edward, that I have told what should have been a secret. You will marry the Duchess--you----' He interrupted her by laughing--a cheerfully sarcastic laugh, as of one who holds the winning cards and means to play them. 'Fair cousin,' he said, 'I have something to say to you of far more importance than that. You have retired before an imaginary difficulty. I am going to face a real difficulty, a real danger. Constance,' he went on, 'you and I are such old friends and playfellows, that you know me as well as a woman can ever know a man who is not her husband. We played together when you were three and I was five. When you were ten and I was twelve, we read out of the same book until the stupidity and absurdity of modern custom tried to stop me from reading any more. Since then we have read separately, and you have done your best to addle your pretty head with political economy, in the name and by the aid of which you and your House of Lawmakers have ruined this once great country.' 'Edward! this is the wildest treason. Where, oh, where, did you learn to talk--to think--to dare such dreadful things?' 'Never mind where, Constance. In those days--in those years of daily companionship--a hope grew up in my heart,--a flame of fire which kept me alive, I think, amidst the depression and gloom of my fellow men. Can you doubt what was that hope?'