“Dear Mr. Sefton,
“Your excellent Ferrari has been here, and I have gone carefully through his statement. It is plausible, but by no means convincing; and I see ample room for error in a chain of facts which rest upon hearsay. Under these conditions I am more than ever desirous that no hint of Ferrari’s story should reach Miss Marchant. Forgive me for reminding you of your promise. It would be a deplorable business if this dear girl were made unhappy about a chimera.
“I go to Redwold to-morrow, and shall stay over Whitsuntide. We are to be married before the end of June, very quietly, at Fernhurst Church.
“Yours sincerely,
“J. Vansittart.”
He rather despised himself for writing in this friendly strain to a man for whom he had an instinctive dislike; but he tried to believe that his dislike was mere prejudice, and that Sefton’s manner with Eve, to which he had taken such violent objection, was only Sefton’s manner to young women in general; a bad manner, but without any sinister feeling underlying it—only a bad manner.
To-morrow he was to go to Redwold, to be his sister’s guest till after Whitsuntide, or until the wedding, if he pleased. And before June was pushed aside by her sultrier sister July, he was to be Eve Marchant’s husband. Every day of his life brought that union a day nearer. It had come now to the counting of days. It seemed to him as if time and the calendar were no more—as if he and his love were being swept along on the strong current of their happiness. He could think of nothing, care for nothing but Eve. His bailiff’s letters, his lawyer’s letters, remained unanswered. He could not bring himself even to consider his mother’s suggestions as to this or that improvement at Merewood, whither Mrs. Vansittart was going at Whitsuntide, to prepare all things for the coming of the bride, and to arrange for her own removal.
“Do as much or as little as you like, mother,” Vansittart said. “You need alter nothing. Eve will be pleased with things as they are.”
“It will be a great change from a cottage,” sighed Mrs. Vansittart. “I’m afraid she will be bewildered and overpowered by a large household. She can have no idea of managing servants.”
“The servants can manage themselves, mother. I don’t want a managing wife. Yet from what I have seen of Eve in her own home I take her to be well up in domestic matters. Everything at the Homestead seemed the essence of comfort.”
He remembered his wintry tea-drinking, the tea and toast, the cake and jam-pots, and Eve’s radiant face; the firelight on Eve’s hair; the sense of quiet happiness which pervaded the place where his love was queen. It seemed to him that there could not have been one inharmonious note in that picture. Order and beauty and domestic peace were there. Should Fate reduce him to poverty he could be utterly happy with his love in just such a home. He wanted neither splendid surroundings nor brilliant society.