But under all circumstances she ever displayed a sort of tempted prudishness.
"You and Evie and Miss Soames must come in one Sunday and have tea with me," she said resignedly at last, allowing the thought that some day I might go up with her to recede.
"That will be charming," I replied.
Then she sighed. "It has been so lovely tonight!"
"In what way?" I asked, forcing a smile.
"Archie was horrid, and you, Jeff——"
Yes, I remembered that hostility to Archie certainly had resulted in a rapprochement between ourselves.
"Well," she said at last, lifting her face, "good-night, dearest—I know who I shall dream of!"
I kissed her, heard the sound of her key in the lock, and, turning, saw her little face still looking through the half-closed door after me. I returned to King's Cross by way of Woburn Place, but there was only a glimmer of light within the fanlight of Evie's dwelling as I passed. Perhaps Archie had chosen the whisky and soda after all.
I soon saw that only by means of a studied unemotionalness should I be able for long to head her off from the things she sought; and I set about the creation of this atmosphere without loss of time. In this I found my far-reaching ambition useful to me; I had simply to be preoccupied with business to be spared much. I had not to play this part. I actually was a ferment of new plans. That my absorbing ambition was all for her sake was allowed to pass as understood. And when she began to make touching attempts to be interested in my affairs, I, lest a worse thing should befall me, encouraged her. I talked fully and freely, knowing that I ran no more risk of betrayal than Napoleon did when he laid before a Russian peasant woman unacquainted with French the plan of campaign he feared to trust to his own staff. This I did as the almonds pushed forth their pink, and the plane-trees budded, and the building birds sang loudly. Once she called me her building bird.