"Brownings—poets," said Dodo, "all those books. After all, they were Mr. and Mrs., though it sounds rather odd when one says so. Don't you remember that delicious poem where they sat by the fire and she read a book with a spirit-small hand propping her forehead—though I never understood what a spirit-small hand meant—and thought he was reading another, and all the time he was looking at her?"
Dodo suddenly thought she was going a little too far. It was not quite fair to introduce into her diplomacy quite such serious topics and besides, there was a little too much vox humana about it. She poked the fire briskly.
"'By the fireside'; that was the name of it," she said, "and here we are. We must advertise, I think, in the personal columns of the Times, and say that Lord and Lady Chesterford have decided to do nothing more this side of the grave, and no letters will be forwarded. They inform their large circle of friends that they are quite well, but don't want to be bothered. Why, Jack; it's half-past seven. How time flies when one thinks about old days."
Throughout March they stopped down at Winston, and the subtlety of Dodo's diplomacy soon began to fructify. She saw from the tail of her eye that Jack was watching her, that something bordering on anxiety began to resuscitate him, as he tried to rouse her. Once or twice, in the warm days of opening April, he coaxed her down to the stream with him (for fishing was a quiet pursuit not at variance with the reposeful life) to see if she would not feel the lure of running water, or be kindled in these brightening fires of springtime. If fish were rising well, she noted with a bubble of inward amusement that he would forget her altogether for a time, but then, though hitherto he had always discouraged or even refused her companionship when he was fishing, he would come to her and induce her to attempt to cast over some feeding fish in the water above. So, to please him, she would take the rod from him and instantly get hung up in a tree. But oftener when he proposed that she should come out with him, she would prefer to stay quiet in some sheltered nook on the terrace, and tell him that she was ever so happy alone. Once or twice again he succeeded in getting her to come out for a gentle ride, solicitous on their return to know that it had not overtired her, eager for her to confess that she really had enjoyed it. And then Dodo would say, "Darling, you are so good to me," and perhaps consent to play a game of picquet. He did not disquiet himself over the thought that she was ill, for she looked the picture of health, ate well, slept well, and truthfully told him that she had not the smallest pain or discomfort of any kind. Often she was quite talkative, and rattled along in the old style, but then in midflight she would droop into silence again. Only once had he a moment of real alarm, when he found her reading the poems of Longfellow....
Then one day to his great joy, she began to reanimate herself a little. A new play had come out in London, and some paper gave a column-long account of it, which Jack read aloud.
"Really it sounds interesting," she said. "I wonder——" and she broke off.
"Why shouldn't we run up to town and see it?" said he. "There are several things I ought to attend to. Lets go up to-morrow morning."
"Yes, if you like," she said. "I won't promise to go to the play, Jack, but—yes I'll come. You might telephone for seats now, mightn't you?"
Certainly the play interested her, and they discussed it as they drove home. One of the characters reminded Dodo of Edith, and she said she had not seen her for ages. On which Jack, very guilefully, telephoned to Edith to drop in for lunch next day, and arranged to go out himself, so that Dodo might have a distinct and different stimulus. Unfortunately Dodo, hearing that Jack would be out, scampered round about lunch-time to see Edith, and drink in a little froth of the world before returning to the nunnery of empty Winston, and thus they both found nobody there. She and Jack had intended to go back to the country that afternoon, but Dodo let herself be persuaded to go to the Russian ballet, which she particularly wanted to see. Jack took a box for her, and in the intervals several friends came up to see them. He enjoyed the ballet enormously himself, and longed to go again the next night. This was not lost on Dodo, and she became more diplomatic than ever.
"Stop up another night, Jack," she said, "and go there again. I shall be quite, quite happy at Winston alone. Let's see; they are doing 'Petroushka' to-morrow; I hear it is admirable."