“It’s a perfect love, Patricia. I drove it down from town to-day. Such a road, stones, ruts—and it behaved like an angel although weighted with an extra sixteen stone of colossal brutality—Peter Masters, Esquire, millionaire.”
“Oh, why on earth did you bring him down here?”
“He did not ask permission. He just came—wanted to see St. Michael. Don’t let’s talk about him. Let’s talk about ourselves. We are much more interesting.”
“Egoist!”
“Doesn’t the plural number cancel the egoism? But I really have something to tell you about myself. Two things, indeed, if you’ll kindly listen.”
“I will try to be polite. Proceed.” She ensconced herself comfortably against the trunk of the tree, folded her hands in her lap and smiled down at him under her half-shut lids. He also moved his position a very little so that he could see her better.
“First, then, Patricia, I have actually done something in Belgium. The roads of which I have dreamed 205 are not quite such fantastic fancies now as they were a year ago.”
She sat erect at once, alert and brimming over with interest.
“Oh, Christopher!”
“It is not done yet,” he went on slowly, “but it is on the way to be done. It means that all the roads here, and the roads all over the world, will one day be made easy to travel upon. It means that mud, dirt and noise will be evils of the past, and they will be roads that will last down the ages.” He stopped with a little catch in his breath and looked at her half ashamed, half pleadingly.