He told her. It reassured him to go back to his foundations and to find them still standing. He lost his tongue-tied clumsiness and spoke rapidly, clearly, with brief, strong gestures. His haggard youth gave place to a forcible, aggressive maturity. He was like an architect who had planned for every inch and stone of his masterpiece. Next year he would pass his finals. He would take posts as locum tenens whenever he could and keep his hospital connexions warm. In five years he would save enough to specialize—the throat gave wide opportunities for research. There were men already interested in him who would send him work. In ten years Harley Street—if not before.
In the midst of it all he faltered and broke off to ask:
"Why do you love me, Francey?"
And then, impulsively, she flung her arm about him and drew him close to her. His head was on her breast, and for one uncertain moment she was not Francey Wilmot at all, but the warm living spirit of the sunlight, of the quiet trees and the grass in which they lay—of all the things of which he was afraid.
"Because you're such an odd, sad, little boy——"
3
After tea it began to rain, not dismally, but in a gentle way as people cry who have been too happy.
"In this jolly old country fine weather means bad weather," Connie Edwards commented cynically. She had reason to be depressed. The impossible poppies dripped tears of blood over the brim of the cartwheel hat. But apart from that misfortune she had never got over her original mood of puzzled dissatisfaction, and she and Cosgrave walked droopingly down the narrow lane arm in arm and almost wordless.
So much of winter days was left that it was dark when they reached the foot of the hill—the eerie luminous darkness of the country when there is a moon riding somewhere behind the clouds. Robert could see Christine and Francey just ahead of him. Christine had taken Francey's arm, and they talked together in undertones like people who have secret things to say to one another. How small Christine was! She seemed to have shrunk into a handful of a woman as though the sun had withered her. She walked timidly, with bowed head, feeling her way. Her voice lifted for a moment into the old clearness.
"His father was a wonderful man—a wonderful, good man. Unhappy. Very unfortunate. Not meant for this world. His mother was my dear friend. If they had lived—those two—— I did what I could—I think they will be satisfied—it makes me happy——"