The Ramblings, thanks to unproclaimed activities of Ralph Bevan, were at that moment in the press.
"Why should you," she said, "if you didn't care about them?"
"It's inconceivable that I shouldn't have cared. … I was blind. Blind. … Well, some day, if we ever have an édition de luxe, they shall appear in that."
"Some day!"
She hadn't the heart to tell him that the drawings had another destination, for as yet the existence of Ralph's took was a secret. They had agreed that nothing should disturb Mr. Waddington's pleasure in the publication of his Ramblings—his poor Ramblings.
"One has to pay for blindness in this world," he said.
"A lot of people'll be let in at that rate. I don't suppose five will care a rap about my drawings."
"I wasn't thinking only of your drawings, my dear." He pondered. …
"Fanny tells me you're going to have a birthday. You're quite a little
April girl, aren't you?"
2
It was Barbara's twenty-fourth birthday, and the day of her adoption. It had begun, unpropitiously, with something very like a dispute between Horatio and Fanny.