"You can hold to that to the end," James returned with warmth, and he looked at Gordon as he might have looked at his own father.
Late as it was, he wrote that night to his [pg 228] own father and mother, telling them of his engagement to Clemency. There now can be no possible need for secrecy with regard to it. James, in spite of his vague sense of horror, felt an exhilaration at the thought that now all could be above board, that the shutters could be flung open. He felt as if an incubus had rolled from his mental consciousness. Clemency herself experienced something of the same feeling. She appeared at the breakfast-table the next morning with her hat. "Uncle says I may go with you on your rounds," she said to James. She beamed, and yet there was a troubled and puzzled expression on her pretty face. When she and James had started, and were moving swiftly along the country road, she said suddenly, "Will you tell me something?"
James hesitated.
"Will you?" she repeated.
"I can't promise, dear," he said.
"Why not?" she asked pettishly.
"Because it might be something which I ought not to tell you."
"You ought to tell me everything if—if—" she hesitated, and blushed.
"If what?" asked James tenderly.
She nestled up to him. "If you—feel toward me as you say you do."