There was no answer, and she gave him another moment for recuperation. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him wiping away the moisture of laughter. Then with a violent effort he subdued the muscles round his mouth.
"She's an old darling," he said; "but, Lily, I shouldn't have liked your grandmother."
Lily heaved a long sigh, herself again.
"Toby, you behaved very well," she said, "and mother is an old darling. Come, we'll go out."
Mrs. Murchison took her cheerful presence away after three days, as she was sailing to America almost immediately, and the two were alone for the next week. Spring had definitely come, and day after golden day ran its course. Life, eternally renewed with the year, had burst from its winter chrysalis, and stood poised a moment with quivering, expanding wings before launching itself into the half-circle of summer months. Everywhere, on field and tree, the effervescence of green and growing things foamed like some exquisite froth. One morning they would rise to see that the green buds on the limes had split, shedding their red sheaths; on another, the elms were in sudden tiny leaf; on another, the mesh of new foliage round the willows of the water's edge would make a delighted wonder for them. The meadows were scarce starred with pink-edged daisies when the buttercups sowed a sunshine on the fields, and in cool, damp places yellow-eyed forget-me-nots reflected the pale blue they gazed at so steadfastly. Toby and his wife would spend long, lazy mornings in the punt or drive about the deep-banked, primrosed lanes—he all tenderness and solicitude for her, she happier than she had known it was given to mankind to be. They talked but little; to both it seemed that their joy lay beyond the region of words.
On the evening of one such day they were strolling about the garden as dusk fell. Birds called in the thickets and shrubs, now and then a rising fish broke the mirror of the river, and each moment the smell of the earth, as the dew fell, grew more fragrant.
"I wish we were going to stay here a long time," said Lily, her arm in his; "but we must go up to London when Parliament meets after the Easter holidays. The M.P.! Good gracious, Toby, to think that the welfare of your country depends upon a handful of people of whom you are one!"
"Parliament may go hang," said Toby, "and Jack will be delighted to let us stay here just as long as you like."
"I am sure of it, but I don't like. What do you suppose I wanted you to get into Parliament for, if you were not going near the House?"