“And you are only twenty-one. You would be happier even at Wareham with me, than at Millenbeck with Throckmorton.”
“I couldn’t be happy in a five-roomed house,” quite truthfully said Jacqueline.
“Yes, you could. I could make you forget whether it had five or ten rooms.”
At this, he put two fingers under her chin, and, tilting up her rosy face, kissed her on the mouth. “Come!” cried Freke, after a little while, remembering how time was flying, which Jacqueline had evidently forgotten, and making for the steps; but Jacqueline stopped him with a scared face.
“Aren’t you married, Freke?” she asked.
“Not a bit of it,” answered Freke, stoutly. “Don’t you believe all the old women’s tales you hear about me, Jacky. I’m no more married than you are this minute. I have been, I admit, but I slipped my head out of the noose some time ago. Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” answered Jacqueline, who could believe anything, “if—if—people can really be divorced.”
They had not been gone ten minutes, when they returned, yet Freke saw a danger-signal flying in Judith’s cheeks. She did not mean to have any more of this. Mrs. Sherrard, who had become an active partisan of Freke’s, asked, as soon as they came in:
“What wish did you make, Jacky?”
Jacqueline started. She had made no wish at all.