Paul suddenly thought he would.
She looked up at him dreamily. "You might even be an actor yourself," she said. "Do you remember those charades that Christmas at the Gators'?" Then a trifle hastily: "Talking of them reminds me."
She had taken off her hat. Her hair was so much sunshot silk. And Paul understood all about the charades at the Gators'. He had extemporised the whole affair, scene by scene. It was the one thing he loved at parties. And one scene had been the deck of a ship in the evening, a piano playing in the background, she in a chair, he, playing the lover, leaning on the bulwark. They had played it rather too well, if anything, though the Gators were not the sort of people, even at Claxted, to mind. And afterwards, Paul remembered, they had been chaffed over it, in a jolly kind of way, and he had been flattered, and they had gone on playing they were lovers, especially going down to supper, on the stairs. It was rather nice of her to remember.
He leant a little towards her. "I remember," he said, looking down into her face.
"We shall never see you after you go to Mr. Tressor's."
"You certainly will," he vowed. "I shall jolly well come. And I say, perhaps you and your father might even come to see me, at Fordham."
"Oh," she breathed, "that would be jolly. But it won't be possible, you know, unless——"
"Unless what?"
She looked up swiftly, and away. A spirit moved in Paul, but then, after all, he was not going to be a parson. He reached out and took her hand. "Unless what?"
She laughed. "But perhaps you'll come back and preach occasionally at the Mission Hall," she said. "The workers will miss you, Paul. Mr. Derrick, Albert Vintner and Edith Thornton."