"Much better. And ideals are such bosh when we have grown out of our short frocks. So the understanding is quite complete; you don't know how much you love me, so we will call it desperately, and I don't know how much I love you, so we will call it desperately too. You have been in love shoals of times before, and I—well, I am capable of falling in love with some one else on my wedding-day. So neither of us will be disappointed if it does not answer, but we have agreed to try. Hey-day, what fun it is! The lonely lady at the Court marrying the musician at the inn; the lady has the establishment, and the musician has the money to keep it up: if you were truly modern you would have both, and be a risen cabinet-maker. Relton will have enough to talk about for a year. But you will not behave as if we were engaged, just yet, will you? I—I don't feel as if I could quite stand it; do you understand?"
He had never heard her voice falter like that before, and he nodded to show that he quite understood. But she sprang to her feet with one of her quick gestures before he had time to realize the intoxicating feeling of that moment, and he experienced a sensation of chill.
"What wickedness to keep this child up so late; come along, Sonny lad, I told Nanny that I would put you to bed for a treat, and daddy is going to stay here and smoke his pipe."
And she vanished up the primitive staircase which led straight from the parlor up to the room above; and daddy was left somewhat with the feeling of having consented to Lady Joan's suggestion of marriage without receiving the right to kiss her, and he sat by the window again and looked among the fruit-trees, and called himself the happiest man in the world, and felt that he would be able to write his Swinburne song when the house was quiet.
A third time the wooden door creaked, and a third time the red sunlight filled the room. But the musician did not notice it, for he was still looking out of the window into the orchard, and he was telling himself with a sense of profound relief that his engagement was at last going right.
There was the sound of a low, soft, glad cry in the little inn parlor, and something glided in noiselessly, hesitated for a moment, and then sped across the ray of light to where he sat by the window. And the musician turned his eyes away from the fruit-trees then, and fixed them on the apparition before him, and a look of dumb amazement began to creep slowly over his face.
"Digby, I've come at last. You said you would not mind waiting ten years for me, and it has only been one; yet, oh! such a weary long one to me, Digby! But it has not been my fault, it hasn't really, dear; they never told me, and papa stopped your two first letters, and Roger Brill—it was Roger, wasn't it?—never brought me the last one at all. It was all a mistake, I can't tell you now, but I found it out and gave them the slip, and came straight here. Oh, Digby, you are not angry with me, are you? I never meant to keep you waiting so, but I did not find it all out till yesterday, so I could not come before. Oh, it has been so sad, waiting for you. And I have been so ill too, Digby; they did not know what was the matter with me, but I knew all the time. It is all over now, though, and we are going to be happy at last, aren't we? And may I have my kiss now, the one you promised me? I think if you had kissed me before I went away I should never have been ill. But I am going to be happy now, so happy. Oh, Digby, I feel so greedy over my happiness that I am frightened of its slipping away again. Is it because I have startled you that you are so silent? Tell me you are not angry with me, Digby,—and—when may I have my kiss, please?"
He took her mechanically into his arms and kissed the mouth that was held up to him, and he experienced dully the sort of shock that an unconventional man feels when a woman he has always considered the type of purity does something which a woman of the world would know better than to risk her reputation by doing. Upstairs, in the room overhead, he could hear Lady Joan singing his child to sleep. He passed his hand across his brow and wondered in a vague sort of way how it was all going to end; it seemed years since Lady Joan had spoken to him.
"No, Norah child, of course I am not angry with you; how could any one be that? But—"
"I don't mind anything if you are not angry with me. Only, why are you so quiet? Have you been suffering too, Digby; haven't they been kind to you?"