"God forbid!" said Seymour piously.
Nadine had spent some time with him, but long after she had gone something of her seemed to linger in his room. Some subtle aroma of her, too fine to be purely physical, still haunted the room, and the sound of her detached crisp speech echoed in the chambers of his brain. He had never known a girl so variable in her moods: on one day she would talk nothing but the most arrant nonsense; on another, as to-day, there mingled with it something extraordinarily tender and wistful; on a third day she would be an impetuous scholar; on the fourth she threw herself heart and soul (if she had a heart) into the gay froth of this London life. Indeed "moods" seemed to be too superficial a word to describe her aspects: it was as if three or four different personalities were lodged in that slim body or directed affairs from the cool brain in that small poised head. It would be scarcely necessary to marry other wives, according to their scheme, if Nadine was one of them, for it was impossible to tell even from minute to minute with which of her you were about to converse, or which of her was coming down to dinner. But all these personalities had the same vivid quality, the same exuberance of vitality, and in whatever character she appeared she was like some swiftly acting tonic, that braced you up and, unlike mere alcoholic stimulant, was not followed by a reaction. She often irritated him, but she never resented the expression of his impatience, and above all things she was never dull. And for once Seymour left incomplete the dusting of the precious jade, and tried to imagine what it would be like to have Nadine always here. He did not succeed in imagining it with any great vividness, but it must be remembered that this was the first time he had ever tried to imagine anything of the kind.
Edith had left Meering with Dodo two days before and was going to spend a week with her in town since she was rather tired of her own house. But she had seen out of the railway-carriage window on the north coast of Wales, so attractive-looking a golf-links, that she had got out with Berts at the next station, to have a day or two golfing. The obdurate guard had refused to take their labeled luggage out, and it was whirled on to London to be sent back by Dodo on arrival. But Edith declared that it gave her a sense of freedom to have no luggage, and she spent two charming days there, and had arrived in London only this afternoon. She had gone straight to Dodo's house, and had found Jack with her and then learned the news of their engagement which had taken place only the day before. Upon which she sprang up and remorselessly kissed both Dodo and Jack.
"I can't help it if you don't like it," she said; "but that's what I feel like. Of course it ought to have happened more than twenty years ago, and it would have saved you both a great deal of bother. Dodo, I haven't been so pleased since my mass was performed at the Queen's Hall. You must get married at once, and must have some children. It will be like living your life all over again without any of those fatal mistakes, Dodo. Jack—I shall call you Jack now—Jack, you have been more wonderfully faithful than anybody I ever heard of. You have seen all along what Dodo was, without being put off by what she did—"
Dodo screamed with laughter.
"Are these meant to be congratulations?" she said. "It is the very oddest way to congratulate a man on his engagement, by telling him that he is so wise to overlook his future wife's past. It is also so pleasant for me."
Edith was still shaking hands with them both, as if to see whether their hands were fixtures or would come off if violently agitated.
"You know what I mean," she said. "It is useless my pretending to approve of most things you have done: it is useless for Jack also. But he marries the essential you, not a parcel of actions."
Jack kept saying "Thanks awfully" at intervals, like a minute gun, and trying to get his hand away. Eventually Edith released it.