“I think you will have your wish, then, Monica, for, from what I can gather, he is very well pleased with his quarters, and improved health makes life pleasant and full of zest. He has the natural love of change that you never knew, and your inherited love for your old home is not really shared by him to any great extent now that he has tried another life. Trevlyn is not woven into the very fibres of his heart as into yours. I think the home-sickness passed off quickly with him.”
“Yes, I daresay. I believe I was foolish myself about Trevlyn, and taught him to be foolish too. Why is it that the younger we are, and the less we know, the more we are convinced we are always right? I have made so many, many mistakes. Once I thought you did not love me, Randolph.”
It was sweet to him still to hear her speak thus, with the intonation that always thrilled him through—with the look upon her face so much more eloquent than any words. It was sweet to feel her loving confidence and dependence. Again and again he vowed deep down in his heart that she should never know a trouble from which he could save her.
The journey was approved by both. It would take them away once again from the round of social duties and pleasures—of which for the time being they had had enough—and leave them practically alone together, to be all in all to one another, as was now their greatest happiness.
“It is too bad of you to run away, Monica,” Beatrice grumbled, when she heard the news. “Your brother can’t want you more than we do here. And if you go, you’ll vanish no one knows for how long, as you did before, and then you will go and bury yourselves in your enchanted castle right away by the sea, and nobody will hear of you any more. I call it too bad: just as we were getting to be friends and learning to know you.”
Monica smiled at the imputation of vanishing so entirely.
“You shall hear of us sometimes, I promise you,” she answered. “If you and your brother will not find the ‘enchanted castle’ too dull, I hope you will come and see us there when we go back in the autumn. There are not a great many attractions, I am afraid, but there is some shooting and hunting. I should like to show you Trevlyn some day, Beatrice, though I believe it will be a good deal changed from the place I have sometimes described to you.”
“It is sure to be perfect, whatever it is like,” was the quick response. “I should think we would come—Haddon and I—if ever we get an invitation. I always did long to see Trevlyn, and I am sure he does the same, though he is no hand at pretty speeches, poor old boy!”
Haddon smiled, and coloured a little; but answered frankly enough.
“Lady Trevlyn does not want pretty speeches, as you call it, made to her, Beatrice. She knows quite well what a pleasure it would be to visit her and Randolph at Trevlyn.”