“I am going to unravel it, for better or worse. And, if for worse, Ira?”
She kissed me, of her own sweet will, in a passion of tears.
“I don’t care about a name, Richard. I don’t want to be Lady Skene. You could never be more to me than you are. If you will only come back to me, the same as you are now, my heart will have room for not one other joy.”
CHAPTER XXV.
JOHNNY AT HOME
Away with wooer’s gallivanting, and all the soft and sugary stuff of dreams. A sterner wind than Zephyr speeds me on my way, and lands me, hard of purpose, in the midst of London, and blows me with a crack up against Johnny’s door. He is established for the time being, with his mother, in a luxurious flat in Victoria Street, and the round red-glass stove in his hall is not more glowing with a warmth of welcome than is the face with which he greets me.
“I say, Dick,” he says presently, “who spoke of fairies?”
“Not I, Johnny.”
“Didn’t you? I say, how’s Miss Christmas, Dick?”
“She is very well, Johnny; she and I are engaged to be married.”
I would not appeal to his generosity—of that I had been determined—through any shadow of misunderstanding. He bore the blow like a Briton, a little huskily, with a little affectation, in the first of the shock, of bending down to tie his shoe.