'Never mind now, sweetheart, it was blind of me not to see through it all, and if you only could have guessed how I was longing to take you in my arms, to ask you why you sent me away, you would not have looked so cold, and—'
It is her turn to interrupt this time, which she does by kissing him. 'Do you know,' she says, 'you nearly made me forget what I was going to say—'
'Is it of great importance?' asks he.
'Yes, it is. Don't you think it would be nice to ask Mabel and the children down here, and we might all go back to London together. I know Teddy would like the sands here; and there is plenty of room; shall we?'
Jimmy says yes, although he would have preferred to remain alone for a little longer.
There is something so nice in knowing that the lovely little person who is always with him, is his very own to take care of and protect against everything, for all the years that lie before them. And he fears to be disturbed, in case it may all prove a dream, and burst like a bubble with the slightest contact of the outer world. But a week later Mabel arrives accompanied by Teddy and the baby; George and Paul, whom Lippa has also begged to come, turn up, and the lovely days that follow, when the sun creeps into their rooms in the early morning enticing them out, where the hedges are covered with sweet smelling honey-suckle and the fields are carpeted with brilliant red poppies, and a walk will take them to the 'Garden of Sleep,' where among the tombstones and long grass they can watch the sea sparkling in a golden haze, and listen to the waves as they break on the yellow sands; where the birds are ever trilling forth their songs without words; those days for ever are stored in the minds of some of them as the loveliest summer man could wish for.
CHAPTER XI
'Love pardons the unpardonable past.'—Christina Rossetti.
It is six o'clock. The tea things have been taken away, and the occupants of the little drawing-room are all apparently lazily enjoying themselves.