“The way you live. You see, you never told me anything about it. You only said that your father was a country gentleman, decently well off, and that you could give yourself up to study because you would have enough to live on. You never gave me the least idea that you were very rich people, nor that it was a great old estate and entailed, and all that sort of thing. It makes a difference, you know.” “I don’t see why,” Lionel objected. “I do. It’s one thing for the son of a quiet, retired officer of no particular position to marry a foundling and a governess. It’s quite another, now that you turn out to be great country people, related to half the peerage, and perfectly frightfully rich. I wish you were not.” Lionel laughed. “If I were not,” he answered, “I should not be able to do as I please without asking leave of any one. I should have to go to work to earn our living, and I have not the faintest idea how I should do that. As a matter of fact, I should not have had the right to ask you to marry me, just for the pleasure of starving together.” “That would be better than nothing,” answered Ellen, without much reflection. “As it is, I am not sure that I have a right to marry you--though I will, if you’ll have me! Every one will call me a scheming adventuress.” “I think not,” said Lionel, and his rather gentle and melancholy face grew suddenly obdurate and almost remorseless. “Of course there will be one row and a general exchange of pleasant family amenities. But there will never be another.” “And what will happen if I change my mind, and tell you that it has all been a mistake, and that I think it would be very wrong of me to marry you, because I should ruin your life?” “I don’t know what would happen,” Lionel answered, with a confident smile. “You had better ask a dramatist or a man who writes novels.” He was right in that, for they were the least dramatic pair in the world, and Lionel’s courtship had been of the simplest and most conventional sort. Their affection for each other had begun quietly, and had grown the more steadily and strongly for having been quite undisturbed, until it had entirely absorbed their two existences into one growth. The idea of separation seemed as absurd to them now as that the law of gravity should be suddenly reversed, or that trees should grow upside down. They did not realise that such attachments really have in them the character of fate--the very kind which most surely ends in tragedy when it does not lead to perfect happiness. Even now, when action was unavoidable and the first great moment seemed to be at hand, they parted without much show of feeling. Each felt perfectly sure of the other, and both were certain that there would not be many more partings. CHAPTER VI