"It was more than three years ago."
Hugh was very pale. Three years ago—three long years in which he had worked, and tried not to think of her! And if he had known—"You see, I've had a queer life, knocking about in strange places," he said, trying to speak calmly. "Often I didn't see any newspapers for weeks together. I thought of you always as rich and happy, living in England, the wife of Sir Edward Clifford—"
"Rich and happy," she repeated, bitterly. "How little one knows of another's life. After his death, there was nothing—there had been some wild speculations; and the estates went with the title, of course, to his cousin. But, yes,—in a way you were right. I was rich and happy because I had Rosemary."
"And Rosemary had you, Angel," cried the child, who had been listening, puzzled and bewildered, not knowing that they had forgotten her presence until this moment. "Rosemary had you. And now we've all got each other—till the fairy father vanishes."
"But I shan't have to vanish after all," said Hugh.
After that, it seemed they had been together but for a moment, when a wild wail went moaning through the house; the first gong for the pensionnaires' dinner.
So loud it was that it hushed their voices for a long minute. And when cool silence came again, Hugh begged that the two would have their Christmas Eve dinner with him, at his hotel. "There's so much to plan for to-morrow, and all the days," he pleaded. "And just for once Rosemary shall have a late dinner like the grown-ups. Do say yes."
So Evelyn said yes. And it was not until they were all three seated in the restaurant of the Hotel de Paris, that he remembered he had been engaged to dine at the Beau Soleil with Mademoiselle and the Comtesse, her mother.
But he did not even blush because he had forgotten.