'You shall talk to him first,' she said. 'I'll join you later.'
'Did he ever commit sublime follies for you,' Hugo asked, detaining her hand, 'as I did when I shut up the entire place because I thought you looked exhausted one hot morning?'
She bent over him.
'Darcy is incapable of any folly in regard to women,' she said. 'That is one reason why we should never have suited each other, he and I. A fool should always marry a fool. Consider my folly when I came back to work in your Department 42 simply because I could not forget your masterful face. Wasn't that also sublime?'
'You never told me—'
'But you guessed.'
'Perhaps.'
She withdrew her hand, and then that delicious swish of skirts which Simon's imagination had foretold thrilled Hugo with delight. He launched a kiss towards her as she vanished.
'We are all to be heartily congratulated,' said Darcy, somewhat astonished when Hugo had put him abreast of the times. 'At one period I suspected that you were going to make a match of it, and then, as I heard nothing, I began to be afraid that she had been unable to banish my humble self from her mind. And, to tell you the truth, the object of this present visit to London was to inform myself, and, if necessary, to—offer her—See?'
Hugo was bound to admit that he saw. Inwardly he laughed to think that he had been seriously disturbed by Darcy's statement in regard to the condition of Camilla's heart.