“Oh, don’t, Colin!” said she. “I can’t bear to think of it.”
“But you did think of it. Wasn’t that a nice surprise for you when I told you that to marry me didn’t mean giving up Stanier? That made all the difference.”
She came close to him. “Colin, don’t be such a brute,” she said. “There’s just one thing you mustn’t jest about and that’s my love for you. I wish almost I wasn’t going to get Stanier in order to show you. Don’t jest about it.”
“I won’t then. Serious matter! But don’t you jest about getting Stanier. Vi, if you would move your head an inch I should get more light.”
“What else does he say?” she asked.
Colin ran his eyes down the page. “Lots of affection,” he said. “He wants us back. Uncle Ronald’s down at Stanier, and Aunt Hester. Then some more affection. Oh, he has had another little attack of giddiness, nothing to worry about. So we won’t worry. And Aunt Hester’s going off a bit, apparently, getting to repeat herself, father says. And then some more affection.”
Colin lit a match for his cigarette, disclosing a merry face that swam before Violet’s eyes after the darkness had closed on it again.
“That’s so like old people,” he said. “Aunt Hester wrote to me the other day saying she was quite shocked to see how slowly my father walked. She’s quite fond of him, but somehow it gives old people a little secret satisfaction to look for signs of breaking up in each other.”
“Colin, you’ve got a cruel eye sometimes,” said Violet.
“Not in the least; only a clear one. And then there’s father saying that Aunt Hester is beginning to repeat herself, and in the same dip of the pen he repeats himself for the third time, sending us his love.”