"Does the House sit to-night, Cleve, darling?"
"Does it, indeed? Why it's sitting now. We are to have the second reading of the West India Bill on to-night, and I must be there—yes—in an hour"—he was glancing at his watch—"and heaven knows at what hour in the morning we shall get away."
And just at this moment old Anne Sheckleton joined them. "She's coming with more tea," she said, as the maid emerged with a little tray, "and we'll place our cups on the window-stone when we don't want them. Now, Mr. Verney, is not this a charming little spot just at this light?"
"I almost think it is," said Cleve, relenting. The golden light of evening was touching the formal poplars, and the other trees, and bringing out the wrinkles of the old bricks duskily in its flaming glow.
"Yes, just for about fifteen minutes in the twenty-four hours, when the weather is particularly favourable, it has a sort of Dutch picturesqueness; but, on the whole, it is not the sort of cottage that I would choose for a permanent dove-cot. I should fear lest my pigeons should choke with dust."
"No, there's no dust here; it is the quietest, most sylvan little lane in the world."
"Which is a wide place," said Cleve. "Well, with smoke then."
"Nor smoke either."
"But I forgot, love does not die of smoke or of anything else," said Cleve.
"No, of course, love is eternal," said Margaret.