“And if you want sundew,” he wound up, “you’ll find it in the Punch Bowl, under Hindhead. Or round about Frensham. The Little Pond, you know, not the Big.”
“But you know all about them,” Emily exclaimed in delight. “I’m ashamed of my poor little knowledge. And you must really love them as much as I do.”
Gumbril did not deny it; they were linked henceforth by a chain of flowers.
But what else did she do?
Oh, of course she played the piano a great deal. Very badly; but at any rate it gave her pleasure. Beethoven: she liked Beethoven best. More or less, she knew all the sonatas, though she could never keep up anything like the right speed in the difficult parts.
Gumbril had again shown himself wonderfully at home. “Aha!” he said. “I bet you can’t shake that low B in the last variation but one of Op. 106 so that it doesn’t sound ridiculous.”
And of course she couldn’t, and of course she was glad that he knew all about it and how impossible it was.
In the cab, as they drove back to Kew that evening, the Complete Man had decided it was time to do something decisive. The parting kiss—more of a playful sonorous buss than a serious embracement—that was already in the protocol, as signed and sealed before her departure by giggling Molly. It was time, the Complete Man considered, that this salute should take on a character less formal and less playful. One, two, three and, decisively, as they passed through Hammersmith Broadway, he risked the gesture. Emily burst into tears. He was not prepared for that, though perhaps he should have been. It was only by imploring, only by almost weeping himself, that Gumbril persuaded her to revoke her decision never, never to see him again.
“I had thought you were different,” she sobbed. “And now, now——”
“Please, please,” he entreated. He was on the point of tearing off his beard and confessing everything there and then. But that, on second thoughts, would probably only make things worse.