"That's the most encouraging thing I've heard you say for a long time," he confessed.
She smiled.
"There are all sorts of possibilities yet," she said. "Now fetch a clothes brush and let me give you a good brushing, and you can take me out to lunch—that is to say, if you can find something decent to wear on your head," she went on, pointing to a somewhat disreputable looking hat which hung behind the door. "I won't go out with you in that."
"That," he replied cheerfully, "is easily arranged. I can change my clothes in five minutes, if you prefer it."
She shook her head.
"You look quite nice when you're properly brushed," she assured him. "Send upstairs for another hat, and we'll go into the grill room at the Savoy. I want a sole colbert, and a cutlet, and some of those little French peas with sugar. Aren't I greedy!"
"Delightfully," he assented. "If you only realised how much easier it is to take a woman out who knows what she wants!"
They lunched very well amidst a crowd of cosmopolitans and lingered over their coffee. Their conversation had been of books and nothing but books, but towards the end Marcia once more spoke of herself.
"You see, James," she told him, "I have the feeling that if Reginald really does succeed in freeing the estates from their mortgages, he will have any quantity of new interests in life. He will probably be lord-lieutenant of the county, and open up the whole of Mandeleys. Then his town life would of course be quite different. I shall feel—can't you appreciate that?—as though my task with him had come naturally and gracefully to an end. We have both fulfilled our obligations to one another. If he can give me his hand and let me go—well, I should like it."
She looked so very desirable as she smiled at him that Borden almost groaned. She patted his hand and changed the conversation.