“Anything to do with England?” asked Hugh with horrible acuteness. Edith had said before that a trip to England would do him good; also that he would like it.
“No, nothing whatever,” said she, with an unconcern that put him off the scent. And with that really solid lie to her credit in the book of doom, she retreated from the subject, masking her retreat by continued appeals to him to go away even if only for a week or two, until from her persistence on the subject it was no longer possible to suspect that her present had anything to do with England.
Before Edith went to bed, and after the picquet was finished, she and Hugh always had a little good-night talk. During those weeks of estrangement—for they seemed now no less than that—which had come to so abrupt an end a few weeks ago, it was the absence or, if attempted, the complete failure of the good-night talks that both had missed almost more than anything. Edith now alluded to those days with great frankness as my “devil-days,” which exactly expressed what she meant. To-night she announced that the good-night talk would be a few words only, for she was gloriously sleepy without being tired, an ideal state of things. The few words, however, were carefully directed toward the morrow. If things went on as she hoped they conceivably might, there would be no good-night talk to-morrow.
“Oh, I’ve had such a good day, Hughie,” she said, “and that makes three weeks of good days now; they have lasted longer than the devil-days, do you know? But the devil-days seemed longer. Think, April is all but over, and, ‘Oh, to be in England.’ Next April perhaps. But think; the daffodil weather, and all the daffodils in the copse looking like the sparkle of the sun on green water. Oh, why are you so selfish in stopping here when you might go back and look at them, and tell me about them. Poor Peggy! She once said that she liked double daffodils best. I prayed for her especially that night.”
Hugh laughed.
“But I like you best,” he said.
“That is why you ought to go back, since I wish it,” she said.
“And leave you alone?” he asked. “Not very likely.”
“No, I’m afraid it isn’t. I think, do you know, that I have a soured nature. I don’t want to have anybody else here. I want to have the pleasure of getting better again in the way I am doing, all to myself. Even if Peggy was here, even Peggy, I should have to share it with her. There’s a depth of depravity! And I don’t want to share it with you. I wish you would go away, and let me give you a surprise when you came back. That’s what I really want. I want you to walk up the path, after an absence, and say, ‘Hullo, who is this blooming young person? Why, it’s my wife!’ Hugh, it would be such awful fun! And now I am going to bed. The subject is closed. If you won’t go, you won’t. Good-night, my darling. Yes, the hand only, please, at a respectful distance.”
Edith was delighted with her diplomacy, and thought how clever she was as she went to bed. It was clear to her at once that the fact that she had said the subject was definitely dismissed had an effect on Hugh. Hitherto he had always dismissed it, feeling certain that she would re-open it. It had evidently made an impression on him to know that she would not. And to-morrow he would receive her present. Oh, it was a good chance!