Eneas shook his head weightily. "The trouble is I shall have to stay in London until the end of July. I've been asked by the Foreign Office to do some work for them—expert work in Turkish which nobody else can do at present." Then he wavered. "But perhaps Cuckoo...."
His wife cut him short. "I shan't be able to get away until July," she said; but she went on roguishly: "So we thought that perhaps if you were very good, Uncle Matthew, we'd lend you Jasmine for a little while."
Eneas could not withhold a glance of admiration; he even resolved not to allude to the mistake over the wine when Uncle Matthew was gone. He admitted to himself that he should never have thought of suggesting that Jasmine was a loan, or of putting Uncle Matthew in the position of a little boy being given a treat.
"Lend me Jasmine?" the old gentleman repeated. "And what am I to do with Jasmine, pray?"
"She's invaluable," said Aunt Cuckoo, leaning across the dining-table and squeezing her niece's hand. "And I wouldn't lend her to anybody else but you. Everybody's clamouring for her."
Uncle Matthew looked at his great-niece with the expression that for many years he had been wont to accord to proffered bargains.
"You told us you wanted a change," Aunt Cuckoo persisted. "And as soon as you told us we made up our minds that whatever it cost us you should have Jasmine."
Throughout the evening Aunt Cuckoo made it appear that Jasmine really was indispensable, and by dint of never committing herself to anything without asking Jasmine if she agreed with her and of never formulating any plan without asking Jasmine first if she approved of it and of never wanting anything without asking Jasmine if she would fetch it for her, she really did manage to impress Uncle Matthew that by taking away Jasmine from The Cedars he would be robbing a nephew and niece. This was too keen a pleasure for the old gentleman to deny himself, and when he left that evening he went away with a solemn promise that Jasmine should be delivered to him at eleven o'clock the following morning.
"We don't usually let the carriage go out two days running," said Aunt Cuckoo in a final burst of abnegation, "but for dear Jasmine's sake we will."
"A very successful evening, my dear," Uncle Eneas observed when the visitor was gone.