“Only Vera won’t let him get at you to tell you so.”
“Oh, he sees enough of me to tell me so,” said Mollie, smiling: “only it takes him time to come to the point of saying things, and it’s true that we haven’t much time.”
“And she hasn’t given you any more scratches before him?”
“Not before him.” Mollie flushed a little. “It was a scratch, wasn’t it? I don’t think he saw that it was.”
“He will see in time. And it’s worth it, isn’t it, since it’s to make him see?”
“Yes, I can bear it. She’s rather rude to me now when he isn’t there, you know; but it’s really less blighting to have some one see you enough to be rude to you than to see you so little that they are affectionate. Yet I hope she won’t be too rude.”
“She can hardly bear it,” I said.
It was the next morning that Vera showed me how little she was able to bear it. She had kept me singularly busy, as if afraid that I might wave a magic wand even more transformingly, and she came into the study where I was writing invitations for a garden-fête in aid of the Red Cross fund, and after giving me very dulcetly a long list of instructions, she went to the window and looked out for some silent moments at Mollie sauntering up and down with Sir Francis under the blue bubble of her parasol.
“I suppose you dressed her when you took her up to town that day,” she then remarked.
I had wondered how long Vera could keep under cover and I was pleased to see her emerge.