Then she held both those big hands in hers.
“That is for Lohengrin,” she said. “I can’t—I can’t say what it all has been to me, but when I kiss your hands as Lohengrin, dear, and know all the time that it is you——”
Then she leaned forward and kissed his face.
“Hughie, Hughie!” she said.
Again she paused.
“I have no more words than that,” she said gently, “and we have all the years to say them in. So let us be sensible. Tell me about it, Hugh, all from the beginning. I want to know how you felt the whole time, what you thought about while you were waiting, what you thought about when the swan came with you, what—oh, everything!”
Hugh leaned back.
“There is very little to tell,” he said. “When I was dressing I thought how frightfully cold silver mail was. And when I had dressed I don’t think I thought about anything. It was all quite blank till a call-boy or somebody tapped at the door of my dressing-room. And then I thought desperately—I thought what an idiot I had been ever to listen to your arguments. I thought how completely happy I should be if I was just going down to dinner at Mannington with you, instead of being here. And then, when I went out and saw the swan waiting, I looked upon it as a man might look on the cart which was going to take him to Tyburn to be hanged, with everybody looking on. What was going to happen was as incredible as death.”
Edith’s hand still held his, and he felt that she was trembling.
“Oh, Hugh, I guessed it,” she said, “and I wanted to come to you so, and could not! Yes, what then?”