"No, it seems inhuman," she agreed. "I spend all my days cheating myself into a hope that he'll get better. I know you don't like him, but if you lived with him as I do, you'd come to hope as I do. Yes, in spite of all you know about us; and you know more than anybody alive. I've not been so--so disloyal--to anybody else." She smiled as she quoted the word against him.
May Quisanté laughed at his tone almost scornfully. "The way you say that shows how little you understand," she exclaimed. "It's not a bit like that." She took a step nearer to him. "When it comes," she said slowly, "I shan't shed a single tear, but I shall feel that my life's over. He'll have had it all."
"God forbid you should feel anything like that," he said, looking up at her.
She laughed again, asking bitterly, "Does God forbid what Alexander wants--except one thing? And what I tell you is what he would want. He would want to have had it all."
"You're right; we won't talk any more," she said. "But don't think that it's all only because I'm overwrought, or something feminine of that kind. It's the truth. When it comes, Aunt Maria'll die and I shall live; but the difference won't be as great as it sounds."
This time he was about to speak, but she stopped him, saying, "No, no more now. Tell me about Dick Benyon. He's to have your seat, isn't he?"
"Yes, I'm gathered to my fathers, and Dick reigns in my stead."
"You're sorry?" she asked, forgetting Dick and coming back again to the man before her.
"Yes; but I accept the inevitable and contrive to be quite cheerful about it."
"We don't do either of those things. Hark, I hear my husband's step."
Quisanté ran quickly up the stairs and burst into the room. His face was alight with animation, and before greeting Marchmont he cried, "I've carried it, I've brought them round. We attack all along the line, and I open the ball at Henstead next week! They'll be out in six months, and I shall----" Suddenly he paused. "They'll be out in six months," he said again.
Marchmont rose and shook hands, "It doesn't matter to me now if they are," he said, laughing. "Blair's troubles and mine are both over now."
"I know," nodded Quisanté. "Well, I suppose you know best. But hasn't May been trying to convert you?"