“Will you do nothing until to-morrow?” I said. “I have an idea which I will tell to no one. Let us go back to Claridge’s now, and do not come and see me again until to-morrow at twelve. Then if this has failed, we will say good-bye. It is a desperate chance.”
“And you won’t tell me what it is?”
“No—please trust me—it is my life as well as yours, remember.”
“My queen!” he said. “Yes, I will do that, or anything else you wish, only never, never good-bye. I am a man after all, and have numbers of influential relations. I can do something else in life but just be a Guardsman, and we shall get enough money to live quite happily on—though we might not be very grand people. I will never say good-bye—do you hear. Promise me you will never say it either.”
I was silent.
“Evangeline, darling!” he cried, in anguish, his eyebrows right up in the old way, while two big tears welled up in his beautiful eyes. “My God! won’t you answer me!”
“Yes, I will!” I said, and I threw all my reserve to the winds, and flung my arms round his neck passionately.
“I love you with my heart and soul, and pray to God we shall never say good-bye.”
When I got back to Claridge’s, for the first time in my life I felt a little faint. Lady Merrenden had driven me back herself, and left me, with every assurance of her devotion and affection for us. I had said good-bye to Robert for the day at Carlton House Terrace.