“Yes. It was dangerous; Jethro might have opened it. I waited by the yew half the night. Why didn’t you come?”
“Because I had just a shred or so of honor left——”
“The evasive thing that men call honor! I never could understand it.”
“A woman doesn’t. Jethro—poor old man—had been devilish good. The two ‘hun’ put me on my feet, Pam. Like the place?” He nodded his head comprehensively at the luxury which walled them. “Decentish, isn’t it?”
“It’s very nice. Why didn’t you come, or write? It nearly broke my heart. If I had not seen your name in the paper yesterday I should have married Jethro.”
“I’m very glad you didn’t.” He looked sleepily at the beauty of her flushed cheeks, at the depths of her happy eyes. “You saw the page advertisement in the Standard? We’re spending thousands in advertisements—throw a sprat to catch a herring. Does the carrier still bring the paper? What’s the fellow’s name?”
“Buckman.”
“That’s it. The same slow old horse—Hackty. You see I’ve remembered that. I suppose they mean it for Hector, or perhaps Active. Gad! what a sleepy hole! I felt like being in a dentist’s chair the whole time, half under the gas, you know, just going off. If you went back in fifty years, they’d be just the same. It’s so precious dull that they’d blow their brains out—if they had any.”
“Jethro has been so good,” she said, feeling numbly that Jethro was already very, very far away. She actually laughed, adding: “He insisted on my bringing up flowers, eggs, some quince jam.”
“That stunning quince jam,” he said boyishly. “Jeth’s a good sort. Was he very much cut up? It was too bad.” He gave her another kiss, without any protest on her part, any courtliness on his; quite as a matter of course.