“Oh, I think it is charming, perfectly charming,” said Mrs. Darling.
“Well,” he replied, “I expect I’ll get used to it. I suppose this sort of life grows on one: in some ways I’m beginning to have a sort of settled feeling already.”
They were walking away from the gates of the Manor, which rose opposite the ivy-covered church, and were approaching the picturesque little cottage where the Darlings lived. Jim paused, and as he did so Dolly experienced a sudden sense of disappointment. She had hoped that he would accompany them to their door, and she had intended then to entice him through it, and to show him over their pretty rooms and round the flower-garden and the orchard. Until now they had only occasionally met, and their exchanges of conversational trivialities had been carried on in the lane, or at the door of the church, or outside the cottage which served as the post-office. He seemed to be a difficult man to take hold of; and during the last few weeks, since her mind had begun to be so disastrously full of the thought of him, she had felt ridiculously frustrated in her attempts to develop their friendship. Frustration, of course, is woman’s destiny, which meets her at every turn; but in youth it sometimes serves as her incentive.
“Won’t you come in and see our little home?” she asked. “It’s rather a treasure.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t,” he replied. “I promised to go round my place with the gardener this morning. He’ll be waiting for me now. But, I say, what about dinner to-night? Won’t you both dine with me?” He was feeling reckless.
Dolly’s heart leapt, and, in a flash, she had selected the dress she would put on, and had considered whether she should wear the little diamond pendant or the sham pearls.
“We shall be delighted,” murmured Mrs. Darling. “Eh, Dolly?”
The girl looked doubtful. “I don’t know that we ought to to-night,” she answered. “We had half promised to drive over to a sort of sacred concert affair in Oxford.”
“Oh, don’t disappoint me,” said Jim. “I’ve got the house almost shipshape now; I’d like you to see it.”
Dolly did not require really to be pressed; and soon the young man was striding homewards down the lane, wondering why it had taken him three months to realize that this girl was perfectly adorable; while she, on her part, was pinching Mrs. Darling’s arm and saying: “Oh, mother dear, doesn’t he look delightfully wicked!”