Something stifled her inclination to ask “Why?”
Hartington went on hesitatingly: “It means so much to him, you see. It’s such tremendous news, because he has no hope or expectation of it. So ... Miss Fane-Herbert, I want you to tell him.”
Her eyes widened for a moment. They looked out beyond Hartington. Then, with abrupt decision, she said, with a fluttering, pleading gesture towards him: “No; you. You must tell him. It’s your right. You brought it about.”
“I wrote to Alter—that’s all.”
“It came about through you. Oh, long before the writing of that letter, you helped him—didn’t you?—perhaps not deliberately. You don’t realize how much you have done for him. Certainly you don’t realize what he feels for you—the strangest mixture of affection, and admiration, and respect—but overwhelming. You are all that’s best in men for him! And he’d like you to bring this news. He’ll be glad, years on, that it was you who brought it. Friendship between men is so much more substantial, more secure. You must tell him,” she concluded. “It’s your right.”
“Why do you insist so much on right? I waive it if it exists. That’s why I came here.”
“Oh,” she cried, with a smile in acknowledgment of his unveiling of her half-pretence, “I want it to be you!”
He laughed back at her, so that her colour came....
He took John away into the country roads, where the cherry-trees were in blossom and the sun lay flat on the long, low, irregular branches, reminding them of illustrations in Japanese fairy-books. There, as they walked, the news was given, the two letters read.