You don't have to be in this play.
Something else will turn up. You can afford to wait."
"But that's just the point--I can't! And, besides, think how silly and
childish it would be for me to refuse a wonderful chance for a
professional debut that might not come again in years."
"But don't you see, Miss Nell, you are in honor bound not to go on with
this?"
"Honor bound? How do you mean?"
"Why, to Queen Vic."
"I agreed to break my engagement with Harold Phipps and not to answer any
of his letters. I've kept my promise."
"Yes; but I thought, and I made her think, that you agreed not to see him
or have anything to do with him for six months."
"Well, the time will be up in six weeks."
"Lots can happen in six weeks."
If Quin had been wise he would have taken another tack; but, in his
earnest effort to make her see her duty to Madam, he failed to press his
own more personal claims, and thus lost his one chance of reaching her.
Eleanor understood impulse, emotion, but she would not listen to reason.
The mere mention of Madam's name stirred up a whirlwind that snuffed out
any love-lights that might have been kindling. She stood with her back to
the table, twisting Harold Phipps's card in her fingers, and she looked
at Quin suspiciously.
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