Claridge’s,
Monday afternoon.
At half past eleven this morning Lady Merrenden came, and the room was all full of flowers that Robert had sent—bunches and bunches of violets and gardenias. She kissed me, and held me tight for a moment, and we did not speak. Then she said in a voice that trembled a little,
“Robert is so very dear to me—almost my own child —that I want him to be happy, and you, too, Evangeline—I may call you that, may not I?”
I squeezed her hand.
“You are the echo of my youth, when 1, too, knew the wild springtime of love. So dear, I need not tell you that you may count upon my doing what I can for you both.”
Then we talked and talked.
“I must admit,” she said at last, “I was prejudiced in your favour for your dear father’s sake, but in any case my opinion of Robert’s judgement is so high, I would have been prepared to find you charming even without that. He has the rarest qualities, he is the truest, most untarnished soul in this world.”
“I don’t say,” she went on, “that he is not just as the other young men of his age and class; he is no Galahad, as no one can be with truth who is human and lives in the world. And I daresay kind friends will tell you stories of actresses and other diversions, but I who know him, tell you you have won the best and greatest darling in London.”