Now it was October, and London life began again. Lady Milmo busied herself in spinning her gossamer web of affairs and appeared smiling and contented. Ella devoted herself to such studies as she considered would be of benefit in her peculiar position as Lady Director of the Colony. Roderick was ever by with suggestion and advice. Things were going splendidly. Some three thousand pounds had already been subscribed and lay at Roderick's bankers. Three thousand more had been promised, irrespective of Sir Decimus's undertaking to provide the Director's salary. With another four thousand they could start. Ella offered to provide it. Roderick shook his head. It had better come from the great heart of the public. She persisted and wrote to Matthew. He urged her almost passionately not to put money into the scheme until she was married. Thus Roderick and Matthew were in accord on the point, and Ella was puzzled.
“When is it to be, dearest?” asked Roderick one day.
The question came suddenly after a short pause in their talk. It was during the few minutes before dinner. Roderick was dining in Pont Street, and Lady Milmo not having come down yet, they were alone.
“You know,” replied Ella, with a half-smile.
“Ah, do I?” said he. “I don't love contingencies. I long for the glorious life with you, my wonderful Ella. And I am a man, and waiting is hard.”
She flushed slightly. The consciousness of being desired ever quickens a woman's pulses. But she also loves the sense of mastery in maintaining herself within impregnable walls. In this perhaps lies the delicious paradox of her sex.
“I keep to my terms,” she said. “Within a week of our starting for the Colony. Not before. It will give a new sacredness to our work and to our married life if we begin them both at the same time.”
“But who knows when the inauguration of the colony will be?” asked Roderick.
“It could be now, practically, if you would let me furnish the deficit.”
“Ah, no,” he said. “You would be acting against a principle very dear to me. It must be others who give their money. We give our lives. If you subscribe, the prestige of the Colony as a great public movement is gone. It is bound to come to ripeness. But like an exquisite fruit it takes time.”