She had no right to call him "Drake"; she had lost that right the day
she had jilted him; but she called him "Drake," and the name left her
lips softly and meltingly.

"I might ask the same of you, Luce," he replied gravely, and unconscious
in the stress of the moment that he, too, had used the Christian name.

But, alas! Nell had heard it! She had, half mechanically, shrunk behind
the pedestal; she shrank still farther behind it as Drake spoke, and she
put up her hand on the cold marble as if for support. For she was
trembling in every limb, and a sensation as of approaching death was
creeping over her. The terrace and the two figures grew misty and
indistinct, the music of the band sounded like a blurred discord in her
ears, and the blood rushed through her veins like fire one moment and
like ice the next.

She would have rushed out of her hiding place and into the house, but
she could not move. Was she going to die? or was this awful, sickening
weakness only a warning that she was going to faint? She pressed her
forehead against the marble, and the icy coldness of the unsympathetic
stone revived her. She found that she could hear every word, though the
two had moved to the stone rail.

"It is quite a shock!" said Lady Luce. She put her handkerchief to her
lips, her eyes, and then looked up at him with the smile, the confession
of weakness, which is one of woman's most irresistible weapons.