Part 39 (2/2)

'No, sir.'

'Good.'

'Doctor Darcy is here, sir. Are you at home?'

Hugo had utterly forgotten about Doctor Darcy. He glanced at his wife interrogatively, but Camilla looked at the moon through the window.

'Show Doctor Darcy in in five minutes,' said Hugo.

'Poor old Darcy!' exclaimed Camilla when they were alone. 'Does he know?'

'Know what? That we are married? No. I wrote to him nearly six months ago to tell him that you were safe and all that, and he acknowledged the letter on a postcard. Afterwards I sent him that trifle of money that you owed him, and he sent a stamped receipt.'

'He always hides his feelings,' said Camilla. 'This will be a blow for him!'

'How?'

'Didn't he tell you he was most violently in love with me in Paris?'

'He did not,' said Hugo. 'Did he tell _you_?'

'No, of course not. He was far too chivalrous for that. It would have seemed like taking advantage of my situation to force me into a marriage.'

'How do you know he was violently in love with you, bright star?' Hugo demanded in that amiably malicious tone which he could never withstand the temptation to employ.

'My precious boy,' replied Camilla, 'how _does_ a woman know these things?'

And she came over and kissed Hugo.

'You shall talk to him first,' she said. 'I'll join you later.'

'Did he ever commit sublime follies for you,' Hugo asked, detaining her hand, 'as I did when I shut up the entire place because I thought you looked exhausted one hot morning?'

She bent over him.

'Darcy is incapable of any folly in regard to women,' she said. 'That is one reason why we should never have suited each other, he and I. A fool should always marry a fool. Consider _my_ folly when I came back to work in your Department 42 simply because I could not forget your masterful face. Wasn't that also sublime?'

'You never told me--'

'But you guessed.'

'Perhaps.'

She withdrew her hand, and then that delicious swish of skirts which Simon's imagination had foretold thrilled Hugo with delight. He launched a kiss towards her as she vanished.

'We are all to be heartily congratulated,' said Darcy, somewhat astonished when Hugo had put him abreast of the times. 'At one period I suspected that you were going to make a match of it, and then, as I heard nothing, I began to be afraid that she had been unable to banish my humble self from her mind. And, to tell you the truth, the object of this present visit to London was to inform myself, and, if necessary, to--offer her--See?'

Hugo was bound to admit that he saw. Inwardly he laughed to think that he had been seriously disturbed by Darcy's statement in regard to the condition of Camilla's heart.

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