I was silent.
"Yet, you are willing to marry me?" he asked.
"Of course! Coal is—very warming," I answered.
Collins descended the flight of stone steps and came slowly along the gravel walk. When he had come to the respectful distance he stopped. No English servant ever approaches very close—as if there were a quarantine around the sacred person of the served.
"My Lord," he said, but stammeringly, as a man halts over a newly-acquired language—"My Lord, Mrs. Carr wishes to know if you will have lunch served in the oak room, or in the——"
"In the oak room," the man standing beside me answered readily enough. "And have the old wing opened and lighted, Collins. We want to see the pictures in there."
The servant breathed the inevitable "Thank you," and turned away.
I seemed suddenly to feel that the golden sea of sunlight was sweeping me away—up into the blue, which was the reflection of forget-me-nots. And there loomed big on my horizon a house that was a home!
"My Lord?" I demanded, as soon as I could speak.