Trix nodded.
“Alas, yes,” she sighed, regret, half genuine, half mocking, in her voice. “But most certainly I shall come down again if the Duchessa will let me come. I had forgotten, absolutely forgotten, what a perfectly heavenly place this was. And that doesn’t in the least mean that I am coming solely for the place, and not to see her, though I am aware it did not sound entirely tactful.”
“And when do you suppose you will be coming again?” asked Doctor Hilary with a fine assumption of carelessness, not in the least lost upon the Duchessa.
“Before Christmas I hope,” replied she in Trix’s stead. “Or, indeed, at any time or moment she chooses.”
Doctor Hilary looked thoughtful, grave. A little frown wrinkled between his eyebrows. He pulled silently at his pipe. The Duchessa was watching him.
“Alas, poor man!” thought she whimsically. “He was about to seize opportunity, and behold, fate snatches opportunity from him. Oh, cruel fate!”
And then she beheld his brow clearing. He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and began feeling in his pocket for his pouch to refill it.
“He’s relieved,” declared the Duchessa inwardly, and somewhat astounded. “He’s so amazingly diffident, and yet so utterly in love, he’s relieved.”
Of course she was right, she knew perfectly well she was right. Well, perhaps courage would grow with Trix’s absence. For his own sake it was to be devoutly trusted that it would.
Doctor Hilary took his tobacco pouch from his pocket, and with it a small piece of paper. He looked at the paper.