With his arms about her, Nicholas smiled back.
“I confess,” he said, “I’ld ’ve liked to feel that you loved me, but I’ld rather you took me out of pity than not at all.”
A child put her hands on his shoulders.
“Do you really love me?” she whispered.
Nicholas smiled down.
“No,” he said. “I’m doing it out of pity.”
A radiant, mischievous look leapt into the child’s grey eyes.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, and put up her mouth.
Ten glorious minutes had passed, and Susan and Nicholas were standing in the salon bleu, drinking each other’s healths in rose-coloured Clicquot. Ten or twelve fellow-guests were hard by, flicking their several appetites with the same beverage. Among them, their recent difference adjusted, were ‘the Duke of Culloden’ and Labotte. The latter’s hand was bandaged and reclining in a sling.