When next she looked up there was, about her eyes, a tiny bright edging of tears that did not fall.
"Jeff," she said, unusually quickly, "Kitty's ill. She has attacks of some kind. I couldn't quite make it out. I suppose Miriam Levey'll tell us all about it on Wednesday. I know you don't like Miriam, but she's awfully troubled about Kitty, and thinks she ought to be looked after. Somebody told her—told Miriam—that poor Kitty'd been found one night walking round and round Lincolns Inn Fields, and when the policeman asked her, she couldn't remember at first where she lived. Oh, Jeff, it does seem so sad!"
Privately I found that horrible. It had been in Lincolns Inn Fields that Kitty and I had walked together, and to think of her still haunting the place, alone, I found very horrible. But if that horror was mine, it was not going to be Evie's if I could help it. I nodded gravely, and took her arm.
"Well," I said (although I was again cudgelling my brains to see how Miss Levey's visit could be frustrated), "no doubt you will hear all about it next Wednesday. I wouldn't worry till then.... What about tea?"
We left the Palace, and sought the teashop near the Bridge. Miss Levey and Aschael passed the door of the shop as we sat, and Miss Levey waved her hand and gave us an artificially bright smile. But her goose was cooked with Jeffries & Pepper. I had far too much respect for her inquisitiveness and persistence to admit her to our new enterprise. Between her and myself Pepper would not hesitate for long, and I intended, if necessary, to put the matter in precisely that form....
After tea, Evie and I took another turn in the Palace. It was a golden evening, with a wonderful bloom on the old walls, windows flashing yellow, and the forests of twisted chimney-stacks brightly gilded. Her arm was in mine, and her hand made little delicious pressures from time to time, and ever and again her cheek seemed to be on the point of falling against my shoulder. Louie Causton's touch had not thrilled me thus. Some high forbiddance would ever have said Louie Causton and myself Nay, but here was flesh of my flesh, and the promise of sweet and rosy flesh between us—for we had spoken of it, and the west that bathed all in golden light was not more tranquil than that other heaven in our hearts....
I remember very well our journey back from Waterloo in the old horse-bus that night. I remember it because of that whispered new pact between Evie and myself. She, tired out no less by that gentle vista than by the fatigues of the day, slept for the greater part of the way with her head on my shoulder and her hat in my lap; and I had to wake her to change buses. In the new bus she settled down again; and I was left free to consider whether the promise I had passed would or would not necessitate a hastening of matters with Pepper. If it should turn out so, so much the worse. In any case it had to be done. For fear of the seven devils, Evie's mind was no longer going to be left as it now was, swept and garnished.
As it happened, I was spared the trouble, though not the subsequent responsibility, of putting Miss Levey off for the following Wednesday evening. On the morning of that very day, as I took Judy a number of drafts, he said, in Miss Levey's hearing, "Are you doing anything to-night?"
"To-night? I'm afraid I am," I replied, though solely for Miss Levey's benefit. "To-morrow I'm not."