Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/132

 In what terms could she tell him that she had changed her mind? How could she defend a proceeding so unwarrantable?

It was not until later in the day, when they took a stroll under the trees in the Park, that she forced herself to grasp the nettle boldly.

Jack, as she had foreseen, was immeasurably astonished. He called, at once, for her reasons. And they were terribly difficult to put into words. At last she was driven back upon the cardinal fact that he had concealed his true position.

He repudiated the charge indignantly. In the first place, he had taken it for granted that she knew his position, in the second, he always made a point of leaving it as much as possible outside his calculations.

"But isn't that just what one oughtn't to do?" she said, as they took possession of a couple of vacant chairs.

"To me the whole thing's absurd," was the rejoinder. "It's only by the merest fluke that I have to succeed to the title, and I find it quite impossible to feel about things as Bridport House does. The whole business is a great bore, and if a way out could be found I'd much rather stay as I am."

"But isn't that just a wee bit selfish, my dear—if you don't think me a prig?"

"If you are quite out of sympathy with an antediluvian system, if you disbelieve in it, if you hate it in the marrow of your bones, where's the virtue in sacrificing yourself in order to maintain it?"

"Noblesse oblige!"

"Yes, but does it? A dukedom, in my view, is just an outworn convention, a survival of a darker age."