“Don’t you understand, Nigel,” she said softly, “that it was precisely for this I have worked so hard. It is just the aim I have had in view all the time. I wanted to have something to give up. I did not care—no woman really cares—to play the beggar maid to your King Cophetua.”
“Then you will really give it all up!” he exclaimed.
She laughed.
“When we go indoors I will show you the offers I have refused,” she answered. “They have all been trying to turn my head. I think that nearly every manager in London has made me an offer. My reply to all of them has been the same. My engagement at the ‘Garrick’ terminates Saturday week, and then I am free.”
“You will make me horribly conceited,” he answered. “I think that I shall be the most unpopular man in London. You are not playing to-night, are you?”
“Not to-night,” she answered. “I am giving my understudy a chance. I am going up to dine with my sister.”
“Annabel is a prophetess,” he declared. “I too am asked.”
“It is a conspiracy,” she exclaimed. “Come, we must go home and have some luncheon. My little maidservant will think that I am lost.”
They clambered down the hill together. The air was sweet with the perfume of flowers, and the melody of murmuring insects, the blue sky was cloudless, the heat of the sun was tempered by the heather-scented west wind. Ennison paused by the little gate.
“I think,” he said, “that you have found the real home of the lotus-eaters. Here one might live the life of golden days.”