“I don’t want to ramble. Never did! I want a home, and my own man. Do you remember when you said you would give me my own way—in reason?”
“And you objected that I would wish to come first? I do.”
“Bless your lonely heart! So do I. I’m afraid I shall spoil you, Ralph!”
“Oh, do!” he cried, and there was a hunger in his voice that sank deep in my heart. He needed me! How good it was to know that, to realise that in all the teeming millions in the world no woman could be to him that I was!
Later on—after a blissful interlude—I began to ask questions:—
“What will your mother say? Will she be surprised?”
“She’ll be delighted, for my sake, and her own! At the bottom of her heart she has always longed to be with her girl. And she’s prepared. She recognised the signs.”
“As Charmion did in me. Why? Do we show it in our faces?”
“Of course we do. Why not? Love’s a new sense, a new life. If one has any expression at all it must show. I’ve gone about feeling as if I were labelled ‘Evelyn Wastneys. By express route,’ for a year past! Now I’ve got you! You’re coming back to take care of me at the ‘Hall’!”
I rather liked the idea of myself as mistress of that old house! With my head on his shoulder I devoted several moments to the consideration of how I should arrange the drawing-room. It was amazing that I could not conjure up one pang of regret for dear “Pastimes!”