She tried to be very kind to John, and when he kissed her before starting, the tears came to her eyes.
Poor good, cold John!
And when he had departed—all the de la Paule family had been there at Brook Street also—Lady de la Paule wondered at her niece's set face. But what a mercy it was the marriage was such a success after all and that there might be a son!
So both Denzil and John went to the war—and Amaryllis was alone.
Verisschenzko had returned to Paris without seeing her—and it was the
beginning of December before he was in England again and rang her up at
Brook Street where she had returned for a week, asking if he might call.
"Of course!" she said, and so he came.
The library was looking its best. Amaryllis had a knack of arranging flowers and cushions and such things—her rooms always breathed an air of home and repose, and Verisschenzko was struck by the sweet scent and the warmth and cosiness when he came in out of the gloomy fog.
She rose to greet him, her face more ethereal still than when he had dined with her.
"You are looking like an angel," he said, when she had given him some tea and they were seated on the big sofa before the fire. "What have you to tell me? I know that you are going to have a child; I am very interested about it all."
Amaryllis blushed a soft pink—he went on with perfect calm.
"You blush as though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort in this way. You are deeply to be congratulated that you are going to have a baby, do you not think so?"