"No time even to buy a doll?"
"I'd rather go home, thank you. Besides, though I should like to have a new doll, perhaps darling Evie would be sad if I played with another."
Hugh was obediently turning the car's bonnet towards Monte Carlo, and for the fraction of a second he was foolish enough almost to lose control of it, on account of a start he gave. "Evie!" he echoed.
It was years since he had spoken that name.
"She's my doll," explained Rosemary.
"Oh!" said Hugh.
"But I don't think she'd mind or be sad if you gave me a doll's house," went on the child, "if you should have time to get it for me by and bye; that is, if you really want to give me something for Christmas, you know."
"Of course I do. But tell me, why did you name your doll Evie?"
He put the question in a low voice, as if he were half ashamed of asking it; and as at that instant a tram boomed by, Rosemary heard only the first words.
"I 'sposed you would," she replied. "Fathers do like to give their little girls Christmas presents, Jane says; maybe that's why they're obliged to come back always on Christmas Eve, if they've been lost. Do you know, even if there aren't any fairies, it's just like a fairy story having my father come back, and take me to Angel in a motor car on Christmas Eve."