But after that there was only one thing to do. For a man so unversed in the ways of women he did it exceedingly well.
Chapter X.
The Old House
It was Orace, that stern disciplinarian, who ruthlessly interrupted the seance in order to lay the table for lunch. That was half an hour later, though Simon and Pat would both have sworn that the interlude had lasted no more than a short half-minute. The Saint moved away to an embrasure and gazed out at the rippling blue sea, self-conscious for the first time in his life. The girl began to tidy her hair. But Orace, after one disapproving glance round, brazenly continued with his task, as though no amount of objections to his intrusion could stop him enforcing punctuality.
“Lunch narf a minnit,” warned Orace, and returned to the kitchen.
The Saint continued to admire the horizon with mixed feelings. He was sufficiently hardened in his lawless career to appreciate the practical disadvantages of Romance with a big R horning in at that stage of the proceedings. Why in the name of Noah couldn’t the love and kisses have waited their turn and popped up at the conventional time, when the ungodly had been duly routed and the scene was all set for a fade-out on the inevitable embrace? But they hadn’t, and there it was. The Saint was ready to sing and curse simultaneously. That the too marvellous Patricia should be in love with him was all but too good to be true—but the fact that she was, and that he knew it, quadrupled his responsibility and his anxieties.
It was not until Orace had served lunch and departed again that they could speak naturally, and by then a difficult obstacle of shyness had grown up between them to impose a fresh restraint.
“So you see,” remarked Patricia at last, “you can’t leave me out of it now.”
“If you cared anything about my feelings,” returned the Saint, somewhat brusquely, “you’d respect them—and give way.”
She shook her head.
“In anything else in the world,” she said, “but not in this.”