“Actually I doubted from the very beginning that you would behave in such a manner. The truth is, as I said last night, you are too much of a gentleman!”

“You certainly make me feel it is a severe handicap.”

“I would prefer you to think of it as a state of mind of which you can be justly proud.”

“I shall not feel that, if it prevents me from getting my own way.”

The Earl took a step nearer to Thalia as he added,

“Let’s stop fencing. I want you, Thalia, and at the moment I cannot contemplate my life without you.”

There was a note in his voice that she had found difficult to resist last night and, although he had not touched her, she put out her hands as if to protect herself.

“Please – please,” she said. “I don’t want you to talk to me like this. I prefer it when we are arguing and confronting each other.”

“I have no wish to confront you,” the Earl replied. “All I want is for you to be mine.”

He saw what he thought was a little quiver go through her and he went on,

“I think you know already, even though you will not admit it, that we mean something to each other, something that neither of us can dismiss lightly or lose without suffering in consequence.”

Thalia was again studying the Rubens and the Earl said softly,

“Look at me, Thalia.”

She shook her head.

“I must go home. You know I cannot stay long.”

“Not if I ask you to do so?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“That is not really an answer. You are just relying on the rules you made yourself, which have no real sense where we are concerned.”

“Nevertheless they are what you have to obey.”

“Why?”

“Because – ” Thalia began, then stopped. “Please – take me home.”

“I desperately want you to stay. Does that mean nothing to you?”

Again there was that note of appeal that she found very difficult to resist.

“Please – ” she sighed.

Now she raised her eyes to his and was lost.

They gazed at each other without moving and it seemed to Thalia that the whole world had vanished into two steel grey eyes and there was nothing else.

They filled her heart, her body, and were part of the very breath she breathed.

She was never certain afterwards whether she moved or the Earl did.

She only knew that without thought, almost unconsciously, she was in his arms and he was holding her against him.

She did not even think that she ought to struggle. It was as if her mind would no longer work and there was only his eyes, then his lips and, as they held hers captive, there was only him.