"Let me take you, Claire. Oh, I am glad indeed! You will see Tom there, and, I hope, be able to congratulate him on his triumph. So let me take you."
She shook her head.
"No, no."
"Why?"
"Because that is impossible—really. I shall see you there, and you will see me. Is not that enough?"
"If you say so, it must be," I answered sadly. "But—"
"'But me no buts,'" she quoted. "See, it is getting late; we must be going."
A most strange silence fell upon us on the way back to Streatley. Claire's face had not yet wholly regained its colour, and she seemed disinclined to talk. So I had to solace myself by drinking in long draughts of her loveliness, and by whispering to my soul how poorly Tom's Queen of Tragedy would show beside my sweetheart.
O fool and blind!
Presently my love asked musingly—