"Dear Trevor, I am so sorry you are worried, but really it will work out all right. We will go abroad somewhere from here, we might go to Rome, it's a lovely time of year, and then to Sicily, to Taormina, … and we'll stay away a year and you finish the picture and I'll write an opera, and then we'll come back married to town in the season and we'll have been married before we leave England of course, and then it will be a year ago, and I don't think anybody will bother about it much."
I looked down upon her. She was so pretty and so dear to me: I must keep her, and if those were the only terms upon which she would stay with me I must accept them.
The landlady came into the room at this minute followed by the maid to lay the luncheon; in the landlady's hand was a fat, black book which she presented diffidently to Viola.
"It's the Visitors' book, ma'am," she said. "I thought you and the gentleman would like to write your names in it in case of any letters…."
"Yes, very much," returned Viola promptly, with a little side smile at me, and sat down and wrote in it.
When she had done so, she closed the book, and as the maid was in and out of the room during luncheon, it was not till it was finished and cleared away and we were alone that I asked her what she had written.
"Mr. and Mrs. Lonsdale; that's right, isn't it? I did not put Trevor for I always think 'make your lies short' is a good rule."
"I thought you were such a truthful person," I said a little sadly.
"So I am—to you, for instance, so I should be to any one who has the right to hear truth; but the world has no right, and I don't care what lies I tell it, it's such an inquisitive old bore!"
I laughed. Viola always made you laugh when you felt you ought to be angry with her.