"Things can be made ready. They can stand up in the rose drawing-room at ten, and you can give her away."
He looked at her admiringly. "I didn't know that you had so much initiative."
She might have told him that it was a quality on which she rather prided herself, but that hitherto it had not seemed to attract him. "There are several things as yet undiscovered by you," she remarked casually, as she locked up her toys.
Watching her, he wondered idly if there were really worlds to discover in Emily. It might be interesting to—find out—.
"Shall you miss me?" he asked.
"Of course. And now if you'll see that the back shutters are barred, we'll be ready to go."
Thus she checked his small attempt at sentiment, and on the way home they talked about Jean. "If Derry goes, you and she must live together in my house. Let that be understood. I'd rather have her with you than with anyone else in the whole wide world."
Thus again the sacred charge, but this time not as a favor, but in lordly fashion, as one who claims a right.
Jean and Derry were having tea at the club, but could not be reached by phone. "They had probably motored out into the country," Emily decided. "We'll have to do things before they come."
The things that she did were stupendous.