Part 4 (1/2)

”Fine! You look as pretty as a picture this evening, Nellie. I tell you, I thought so, when I squinted in through the window.”

”That's because I'm so happy.”

”So am I.” He pressed her arm to show why, and ”Maurice! you are a goose,” was her gay comment; but for once his foolish loverlikeness pleased her; her mood was widely charitable.

They paced the little lawn in silence. She suddenly asked, ”You don't mind my being happy, do you?”

”Mind! Good Lord!” and he pressed her arm again.

”Being excited about--about it, I mean. It's natural, Maurice?”

”Of course it is. Of course it is, old girl.”

”But you're not--it doesn't excite you?”

Mr. Letham was too honest, even at risk of disturbing this happy pa.s.sage, to pretend the untrue. ”Well, that's nothing,” he said.

”That's nothing. I'm so beastly slow. An earthquake wouldn't excite me.”

”I don't believe it would,” she laughed, then was serious. ”But I'm excited,” she said abruptly. ”Oh, I am!” She put up her face towards the veiling sky--a dim star here and a dim star there and a faint breeze rising--and she drew a deep breath just as she had breathed deeply in the drawing-room a few moments earlier. ”Oh, I am!” she repeated. ”Maurice! I want to talk about it.”

He was not at all conscious of the full intensity of her feelings; but for such of it as he perceived he smiled at her in his tolerant way.

”Well, you say,” he told her. ”You do the talking.”

She was silent for a considerable s.p.a.ce; her mind run far ahead and occupied among thoughts to which she could not introduce him, for he had no place in them. That he s.h.i.+vered slightly recalled his presence to her. That his presence had been deliberately shut from among the castles she had been building caused her one of those qualms which (if we are kind) often sting us back from our worser self to our better nature. And she was kind, alternating ceaselessly between the many womanly parts she had and those other parts we all possess; only to be pitied if the events now quickly shaping for her tempted her too much, led her too far from the point whence kindness is recoverable.

Recalled to him and to her womanliness, ”Oh, your coat!” she exclaimed.

”You've been getting hot and you'll catch your death of chill. You're dreadfully careless. Where is it?”

”In the summer-house. But what rot!”

”I'll get it.” She slipped her arm from his hand and ran away across the lawn. ”There!” she said, returning. ”Now b.u.t.ton it up. Ah!

You're all thumbs!”

She fastened it for him and turned up the collar. The action brought her face close to his. ”You're jolly good to me, Nellie,” he said, and his lips brushed her forehead. A kiss it had been, but she drew back a step. ”Not going to have you ill on my hands,” she told him brightly.

Then she slipped a hand into his arm and resumed, ”What are we going to do--first? I want to talk about that.”

She had talked to him of it all the morning; but as if it were undiscussed--anything to preserve these happy moments--”Yes, go on,” he said.

She responded eagerly. ”Well, we must write to Lady Burdon, of course--Jane Lady Burdon, now, you said, didn't you? Not to-day.

Better wait a day--to-morrow.”

”That is what I thought.”

”Yes--yes--and then you will have to go to see her. By yourself. I won't come at first.” She gave a little sound of laughter. ”I don't think I shall much like Jane Lady Burdon, from what you told me this morning.”

He asked her: ”Good lord, why, Nellie? Why, what did I tell you? I've only seen her once, years and years ago.”

”You made her out proud; you said she would feel this terribly.”