He grasped her hands as he had grasped them three hours ago when they had first met in his mother's presence. And then again he breathed her name. But this time the touch of doubting, incredulous joy had passed into something ardent, exultant, possessive, and she was in his arms—her self-absorption, her fastidiousness, her lifelong shrinking from any strong emotion, swept away by a force which she had once only known sufficiently to abhor and to condemn, but which she now felt to be divine.
And then Oliver Tropenell said a strange thing indeed. "To have secured this immortal moment, I would willingly die a shameful, ignoble death to-morrow," were the words he whispered, as he strained Laura to his heart, as his lips sought and found her lips....
At last they paced slowly on, and Laura found herself secretly exulting in the violence of Oliver's emotion, and in the broken, passionate terms of endearment with which he endowed her. That her response was that of a girl rather than that of a woman was to her lover an added ecstasy. It banished the hateful, earthy shade of Godfrey Pavely—that shade which had haunted Oliver Tropenell all that evening, even in his mother's house.
Just as they were about to step out from under the arch of the beech trees on to the high road, he again took her in his arms. "Laura?" he whispered. "May I tell my mother?" But as he felt her hesitating: "No!" he exclaimed. "Forget that I asked you that! We will say nothing yet. Secrecy is a delicious concomitant of love." She heard the added, whispered words, uttered as if to his own heart, "At least so I have ever found it." And they were words which a little troubled Laura. Surely she was the first woman he had ever loved?
"Aunt Letty has a right to know," she murmured. "But no one else, Oliver, must know, till January is past." And then she hung her head, perchance a little ashamed of this harking back to the conventions of her everyday life.
He was surprised to hear her say further and with an effort, "I would rather Lord St. Amant didn't know. We shall be staying at Knowlton Abbey together in December."
"We shall," he said exultantly. "For that I thank God!"
Then suddenly he released her from out of his strong encompassing arms, and stooping down very low he kissed the hem of her long black gown....
After they had parted Oliver Tropenell waited on and on in the dark garden till he heard Lord St. Amant's car drive away. Then he walked quickly across the lawn and back into his mother's drawing-room.
"Mother?" he said briefly. "Laura and I are going to be married. But we do not wish any one to know this till—till February."