'
'Come, Venetia, I am not going to submit to compliments from you,'
said Lord Cadurcis; 'no blarney. I wish you only to think of me as
you did ten years ago. I will not have our hearts polluted by the
vulgarity of fame. I want you to feel for me as you did when we were
children. I will not be an object of interest, and admiration, and
fiddlestick to you; I will not submit to it.'
'Well, you shall not,' said Venetia, laughing. 'I will not admire you
the least; I will only think of you as a good little boy.'
'You do not love me any longer, I see that,' said Cadurcis.
'Yes I do, Plantagenet.'
'You do not love me so much as you did the night before I went to
Eton, and we sat over the fire? Ah! how often I have thought of that
night when I was at Athens!' he added in a tone of emotion.
'Dear Plantagenet,' said Venetia, 'do not be silly. I am in the
highest spirits in the world; I am quite gay with happiness, and all
because you have returned. Do not spoil my pleasure.'
'Ah, Venetia! I see how it is; you have forgotten me, or worse than
forgotten me.'
'Well, I am sure I do not know what to say to satisfy you,' said
Venetia. 'I think you very unreasonable, and very ungrateful too, for
I have always been your friend, Plantagenet, and I am sure you know
it.
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