Ah! what fools men are--what fools they always will be! Etta gave a little nod, looking shamefacedly down at the pattern of her lace fan.
"Is that it ?" he asked breathlessly.
The nod was repeated, and Paul Howard Alexis was thereby made the happiest man in England.

She half expected him to take her in his arms, despite the temporary nature of their solitude.

Perhaps she half wished it; for behind her business-like and exceedingly practical appreciation of his wealth there lurked a very feminine curiosity and interest in his feelings--a curiosity somewhat whetted by the manifold differences that existed between him and the society lovers with whom she had hitherto played the pretty game.
But Paul contented himself with raising the gloved fingers to his lips, restrained by a feeling of respect for her which she would not have understood and probably did not merit.
"But," she said with a sudden smile, "I take no responsibility.

I am not very sure that it will be a success.

I can only try to make you happy--goodness knows if I shall succeed!" "You have only to be yourself to do that," he answered, with lover-like promptness and a blindness which is the special privilege of those happy fools.
She gave a strange little smile.
"But how do I know that our lives will harmonize in the least?
I know nothing of your daily existence; where you live--where you want to live." "I should like to live mostly in Russia," he answered honestly.
Her expression did not change.