“Ah! Does he know?”
“Well, I’m not sure,” she said thoughtfully. “He ought to, but he’s such a stupid person.”
It was then that Gilbert Deyes received the shock of his life. He discovered quite suddenly that her eyes were full of tears. For the first time for many years he nearly lost his head.
“Perhaps,” he suggested, dropping his voice and astonished to find that it was not quite so steady as usual, “he has been waiting!”
“I am afraid not,” she answered, looking down for a moment at the buckle in her waistband.
He looked round.
“If only he were here now,” he said. “Could one conceive a more favourable opportunity? An April morning, sunshine, flowers, everything in the air to make him forget that he is an old fogey and doesn’t deserve——”
She lifted her eyes to his, now deliciously wet. Her brows were delicately uplifted.
“I couldn’t do it,” she murmured, “unless he were in the same room.”