Beatrix flung her arms round her neck and kissed her warmly. "You know I'm not perfect, darling," she said. "But you love me all the same, don't you?"
For a moment, as she clung to her, Caroline thought that there were to be the real confidences for which she was aching. She returned her embrace, with her heart in her throat. But Beatrix drew herself away. "He does love me; and I love him," she said, with an air of finality. But there had been ever so little of a pause between the two statements.
Grafton's telegram came early the next morning, "Delighted, my darling; love and blessings. Have wired to Dick, shall be down this evening. Bring him to meet me."
It was Thursday, and he had not intended to come down until the following day. There was no doubt about the pleasure the news had given him. Beatrix went about the house singing.
Late that evening Caroline came down to talk to her father, who was reading in the library over a last pipe. One of the signs of his changed habits was the considerable diminution of his cigar bill.
He looked up with a smile of pleasure. "Why, my darling child," he said, "I thought you were in bed long ago. Have you been talking it all over with B?"
"No," she said. "I thought I'd come and talk it all over with you, Dad."
He laid aside his book. "Well, it's all very satisfactory, isn't it?" he said. "Rather different from last time! We weren't in such a happy state a year ago."
"It wasn't quite a year ago," she said. "And it isn't six months ago since she was so much in love with somebody else."
"I know. I knew she'd get over it. But I confess I didn't think she'd get over it quite so quickly."