“Come and spend the summer with us—no, I do not mean you to make a visit of a month or six weeks. Pack up all your belongings, come down with us and be one of the family, till we are ready to come back to town. Make your headquarters with us, write your book, go away and make visits for a week when you like, but consider that our house is your home. Will you?”
“But, Totty, you would be sick of the sight of me——” Visions of an enchanted existence by the river rose before George’s eyes. He was to some extent intellectually demoralised, and every agreeable prospect in the future resolved itself into the thought of mental rest superinduced by boundless luxury and material comfort.
“What an idea!” exclaimed Totty indignantly. “Besides, if you knew how interested I am in making the proposal, you would see that you would be conferring a favour instead of accepting one.”
She laughed softly when she had finished the sentence, thinking how very true her words were.
“I cannot understand how,” George answered. “Please explain. I really cannot see how I shall be conferring a favour by eating your wonderful dinners and drinking that champagne of Sherry’s.”
Totty laughed again.
“I wish you would finish it! It would be ever so much better for his liver, if you would.”
She wondered what George would think if he knew that a fresh supply of that particular brand of brut was already on its way from France, ordered in the hope that he might accept the invitation she was now pressing upon him.
“And as for the cook,” she continued, “he will do nothing unless there is a man in the party. That is it, George. I have told you now. Dear Sherry is not coming back until the autumn, and Mamie and I feel dreadfully unprotected down there all by ourselves. Please, please come and take care of us. I knew you would come—oh, I am so glad! It is such a relief to feel that you will be with us!”
As indeed it was, since if George was under Totty’s personal supervision there would be no chance of his returning to his former allegiance to Constance. George himself saw that her reasons were not serious, and considering the previous conversation and its earnest tone, he thought that he saw through Totty’s playfulness and kindly wish to do a very friendly action.