My face fell. "Oh, sweetheart, what a horrid way of falling in love."
"It wasn't horrid at all, silly—and anyway it was my way. From Frankie's letters I had built up a sort of combination of King Arthur and Sir Philip Sidney and Henry Esmond and the Scarlet Pimpernel, and had called it You and fallen in love with it. And of course I felt sure that when I met you you would fall far short of what I had imagined, and so the rest of my life would be one bitter regret and longing for a lost ideal. You know the sort of thing: just what a girl would thoroughly enjoy. And then when I got to know the real You, you were so much nicer than anything I had ever imagined that all my unfulfilled plans were quite upset. And so instead of breaking my heart, as I had intended, I lost it."
"You darling!" I whispered, covering her pretty curls with kisses.
"And now, since we are on the catechising task, would you mind telling me what stopped concealment's meal, and why your damask cheek was suddenly, as you might say, 'off' the menu?" Fay asked.
I told her the simple truth. "Because both Annabel and Arthur said that you had a right to know that I loved you, and that it was for you to decide whether I was too old for you."
Fay drew herself slightly out of my arms. "How very interfering of them!" she said shortly.
I hastened to explain. "No, no, my darling, you mustn't think that. You will be doing them both a grave injustice if you do. I asked for their advice, they would never have offered it otherwise."
"I can't see that it was any business of theirs."
"But of course it was," I urged; I could not bear for there to be any misunderstanding between Fay and Annabel. "Don't you see, sweetheart, that it was certainly Arthur's business, because your father appointed him your guardian? And Annabel has been more than a sister—almost more than a mother—to me, so that everything which concerns me is her business par excellence."
"I see," said Fay. But somehow—I do not know why—a cloud seemed to have come over the full sunshine of our new happiness.