Eric went to his room and tried to write, but his broken night and the flooding heat of the afternoon sun made him drowsy. He fell asleep in his chair and awoke with a start to find Ivy bending over him and kissing his forehead.
“My dear, there’s nothing wrong, is there?,” he asked.
“No! But you looked so anxious at lunch that I thought I’d come and tell you everything was all right. What a darling room Lady Pentyre’s given you to work in! Or sleep in. Were you frightfully tired, sweetheart, and did I wake you?”
“I was only lazy. Is it tea-time?”
“We’ve had tea. And I’m supposed to be writing letters. Don’t you think I’ve written them long enough? Don’t you think you might take me on the river now?”
She held out her hands, and Eric jumped up and caught her in his arms. He had dreamed of many things, not all of them pleasant; when he felt the light brush of lips on his forehead, he could have sworn that Barbara was kissing him; and the sight of Ivy puzzled him, recapturing for an instant the fleeting cloud-wreath of a fancy that something had happened to her, that he had lost her....
“You were anxious, Eric?”
“I didn’t want you to be upset; and I didn’t want even a shadow to come between us.”
“It hasn’t.”
They ran downstairs hand in hand, separating decorously in the hall and then slipping through a side-door into the garden. Reaction over her fright, the ever-new sense of security had elated Ivy until she was happier than at any time since their magical return to London from the river. In a week their month’s waiting would be over; he was already beginning to think how the announcement should be made....