“Are you so sure of all these things, Margaret?” he whispered. “Don't you think it is, perhaps, because there has been no one to care for you as I do—as I shall—to the end of my days? The lily you left on your chair last night was like you—fair and stately and beautiful, but a little bruised. You will come back as it has done, come back to the world. My love will bring you. My care. Believe it, please!”
Then he saw the first signs of change in her face. There was the faintest shade of almost shell-like pink underneath the creamy-white of her cheeks. Her lips were trembling a little, her eyes were misty. With a sudden passionate little impulse, her arms were around his neck, her lips sought his of their own accord.
“Let me forget,” she sobbed. “Kiss me let me forget!”
Francis' servant was both heavy-footed and discreet. When he entered the room with a tray, his master was standing at the sideboard.
“I've done the best I could, sir,” he announced, a little apologetically. “Shall I lay the cloth?”
“Leave everything on the tray, Brooks,” Francis directed. “We will help ourselves. In an hour's time bring coffee.”
The man glanced around the room.
“There are glasses on the sideboard, sir, and the corkscrew is here. I think you will have everything you want.”
He departed, closing the door behind him. Francis held out his hands to Margaret. She rose slowly to her feet, looked in the glass helplessly and then back at him. She was very beautiful but a little dazed.
“Are we going to have luncheon?” she asked.