“It’s all so terrible,” she said. “Supposing your bicycle hadn’t punctured?”
He laughed. “I remember I was annoyed when it happened, but it was a blessing after all,” he said. “The point that concerns us is that it did, and another point is that you’re not to sit up any longer.”
“But you’d like a game,” she said. “What will you do with yourself?”
Colin knew his power very well. He turned, drawing one of her hands that rested on his shoulder round his neck.
“The first thing I shall do with myself is to take you to your room,” he said, “and say good-night to you. The second is to sit up for another half-hour and think about you. The third to look in on tiptoe and see that you’re asleep. The fourth, which I hope won’t happen, is to be very cross with you if you’re not. Now, I’m not going to argue, darling.”
The ten minutes were passing, and without another word he marched her to her room, she leaning on him with that soft, feminine, clinging touch, and closed her Venetian shutters for her, leaving the windows wide.
“Now promise me you’ll go to sleep,” he said. “Put it all out of your mind. Raymond’s at Cambridge. You’ve got not to think about him; I don’t. Good-night, Vi!”
At the door he paused a moment, wondering if she had heard him speak to Nino over the wall. In case she had, it were better to conceal nothing.
“I’m just going downstairs to give Nino what I owe him for his boat this morning,” he said. “I told him to come up for it. I shall just peep in on you, Vi, when I go to bed. If you aren’t asleep, I shall be vexed. Good-night, darling!”
Colin went downstairs again and opened the garden door into the road. There was Nino sitting on the step outside. He beckoned him in and shut the door behind him.