"In earnest. I hardly thought that that would be doubted. Do you not
believe me?"
"I do believe you. And you will be good?"
"Ah,--I do not know that."
"Try, and I will love you so dearly. Nay, I do love you dearly. I do.
I do."
"Say it again."
"I will say it fifty times,--till your ears are weary with it";--and
she did say it to him, after her own fashion, fifty times.
"This is a great change," he said, getting up after a while and
walking about the room.
"But a change for the better;--is it not, Oswald?"
"So much for the better that I hardly know myself in my new joy. But,
Violet, we'll have no delay,--will we? No shilly-shallying. What is
the use of waiting now that it's settled?"
"None in the least, Lord Chiltern. Let us say,--this day
twelvemonth."
"You are laughing at me, Violet."
"Remember, sir, that the first thing you have to do is to write to
your father."
He instantly went to the writing-table and took up paper and pen.
"Come along," he said. "You are to dictate it." But this she refused
to do, telling him that he must write his letter to his father out of
his own head, and out of his own heart. "I cannot write it," he said,
throwing down the pen. "My blood is in such a tumult that I cannot
steady my hand.
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