“How can I thank you?”
“By not thanking me—Flueyn’s an excellent chap—no, I won’t come and have cocoa, thank you. I never drink it at night. You will be all right? Then you will forgive me if I go home; I have letters to write. I won’t forget, only don’t build on it—because—”
“I have built—it’s finished—all but the roof.”
Marcus looked at her—there were tears in her eyes. “Please don’t look so—happy,” he said; “it frightens me.”
On his way back to the hotel, he called in to see Mrs. Sloane. She was delighted to see him and to hear his news.
“Tell me all about it—begin at the very beginning. Tell me first about the young man.”
“He’s very big and I should say wonderfully healthy: has lots of hair—fair! It stands on end at the slightest provocation. He laughs, I should imagine, tremendously. Out of office hours he would be boisterous, I am sure of that—but none of her family will mind—‘Auntie’ wouldn’t hear him if he wasn’t. He plays games, I believe—I don’t know what else to tell you. You see I didn’t know him—I didn’t even know how to pronounce his name.”
“But you ought to have known him. He sounds so eminently desirable.”
“For her—yes, but he would jar upon you a thousand times a day.”
“That would be my fault—it’s a bad thing for a woman when she grows too fragile, too exotic, to stand a boisterous laugh. You are very gentle, my friend, to an old woman.... I told Shan’t I felt very old to-day, and she said, so kindly: ‘You’re not so old as Moses would have been if he had lived.’”