She lay back in her chair and closed her eyes, as if she could shut out sound with sight. "Please—please. If you go on talking about it we shall both be very tired. Don't you feel as if you'd like some tea?" She was bringing out all her feminine reserves to conquer him. But he was not going to be conquered this time. He could afford to wait; for he also had reserves.
"I'm so sorry," he said humbly. "I won't bore you any more till after tea."
And Lucia knew it was an armistice only and not peace.
At tea-time Kitty perceived that the moment was not yet propitious for her invitation. She was not even sure that it would ever come. Nor would it; for Rickman knew that his only chance lay in their imminent parting, in the last hour that must be his.
He was counting on it when the steady, resistless flow of a stream of callers cut short his calculations. It flowed between him and Lucia. They could only exchange amused or helpless glances across it now and then. At last he found a moment and approached her.
"I wanted to give you those things before I go."
"Very well. We'll go into the house in one minute."
He waited. She made a sign that said, "Come," and he followed her. She avoided the morning-room that looked on the courtyard with its throng of callers; hesitated, and opened the door into the library. He ran upstairs to fetch the manuscript, and joined her there. But for the empty bookshelves this room, too, was as he had left it.
Lucia was sitting in a window seat. He came to her and gave the poems into her open hands, and she thanked him.
"Nonsense. It's good of you to take them. But that doesn't release you from your obligations."