“And you will help me? Say you will. Say it now!”
“I am thinking——”
“Don’t think. Just promise.”
Latham was minded to tell her, “Some one must think,” but he refrained, and said instead, “We’ll talk it over at least, several times, if we may. Yes, I’ll come soon again and talk it over, if you’ll let me.”
She seemed quite satisfied at that. Probably she foresaw several tête-à-tête luncheons. Perhaps Latham did also.
He would have stayed to tea, but Angela did not ask him; and at last he got up slowly. Even then she might ask him, he thought, but she did not.
But she gave him a deep red rose—at his request.
Just as he was going he turned back to say, “I do know, of course, that Pryde is obsessed about aviation, and that Bransby will have none of it—and, between you and me, I think that Bransby is wrong—but why do you care? Are you interested in the air?”
“Good gracious, no. I love the earth—and indoors for choice. Give me a good rocking-chair. I’d rather have that than the best horse that ever was driven or ridden, though I like horses too. I’m just sheer sorry for Stephen Pryde. I like him. And I’d just love to help him. He’ll succeed too, I think; but that’s not the point. I want him to have his own way. He never has—in anything. Only think, how horrid, never to have your own way.”
“Much you know about it.”