"And from what?
The favour shown you by our Sovereign, the wealth he has bestowed, the personal interest he has taken in perfecting every detail of one of the most splendid homes ever given save to a prince--every incident of your position--make you the most envied man in this world; and you would escape from them ?" Gazing for a few moments in my face, she added-- "These maidens were chosen as the loveliest in all the Nurseries of two continents; every one of them far more beautiful than I can be, even in your eyes.

Pray do not, for my sake, be unkind to them or try to dislike them.

What is it you would escape ?" "Being false to you," I answered, "if nothing else." "False!" she echoed, in unaffected wonder.

"What did you promise me ?" Again I was silenced by the loyal simplicity with which she followed out ideas so strange to me that their consequences, however logical, I could never anticipate; and could hardly admit to be sound, even when so directly and distinctly deduced as now from the intolerable consistency of the premises.
"But," I answered at last, "how much did _you_ promise, Eveena?
and how much more have you given ?" "Nothing," she replied, "that I did not owe.

You won your right to all the love I could give before you asked for it, and since." "We 'drive along opposite lines,' Madonna; but we would both give and risk much to avoid what is before us.