Virginia Dubec rose from her chair impulsively and kissed her. "My darling old Toby!" she said. "You are very annoying at times, but I couldn't do without you."
After tea Miss Dexter went out of the room, and they did not try to stop her. When they were left alone Dick held Virginia in his arms and looked into her eyes. "What have you done to me," he asked her, with a smile, "after all these years?"
"Am I really the first, Dick?" she asked him.
"You are the first, Virginia—and the only one. You have changed everything. I have always thought I had everything I wanted. Now I know I've had nothing."
"And I have had nothing, either," she said. "Every morning I wake up wondering what has happened to me. And when I remember I begin to sing. To think that at my age, and after my bitter experience, this should come to me! Oh, Dick, you don't know how much I love you."
"I know how much I love you," he said. "If there were no other way I would give up Kencote and everything else for you. I love you enough for that, Virginia, and the things I would give up for you are the only things I have valued so far. But we won't give up anything, my girl. My good old obstinate old father will fall at your feet when he knows you."
"Will he, Dick?"
"I have fallen at your feet, Virginia, and I'm rather like my father, although I think I can see a bit further into things, and I have a little more control over my feelings—and my speech."
They had sat down side by side on a sofa, and Dick was holding her slender hand in his brown one.
"I used to think you had so much control over yourself that it would be impossible ever to get anything out of you," she said. "You are so frightfully and terrifyingly English."