“Home to dinner, darling,” said the girl at last. “Hardly time to dress if we hurry. Grumper will simply rampage and roar. He gets worse every day.” She disengaged herself from the boy’s arms and her terribly beautiful, painfully exquisite, trance.
“Give me one more kiss, tell me once more that you love me and only me, for ever, and let us go…. God bless this place. I thank God. I love God—now …” she said.
Dam could not speak at all.
They walked away, hand in hand, incredulous, tremulous, bewildered by the beauty and wonder and glory of Life.
Alas!
As they passed the Lodge and entered the dark avenue, Dam found his tongue.
“Must tell Grumper,” he said. Nothing mattered since Lucille loved him like that. She’d be happier in the subaltern’s hut in the plains of India than in a palace. If Grumper didn’t like it, he must lump it. Her happiness was more important than Grumper’s pleasure.
“Yes,” acquiesced Lucille, “but tell him on Monday morning when you go. Let’s have this all to ourselves, darling, just for a few hours. I believe he’ll be jolly glad. Dear old bear, isn’t he—really.”
In the middle of the avenue Lucille stopped.
“Dammy, my son,” quoth she, “tell me the absolute, bare, bald truth. Much depends upon it and it’ll spoil everything if you aren’t perfectly, painfully honest.”