I suppose some who read this plain statement of fact will declare me to have been a fool. But to such I would reply that in your hearts the flame of real love has never yet burned. You may have experienced what you have fondly believed to have been love—a faint flame that has perhaps flickered for a time and, dying out, has long been forgotten. Only if you have really loved a woman—loved her with that all-consuming passion that arises within a man once in his whole lifetime when he meets his affinity, can you understand why I made Sylvia my wife.
I had the car brought up to meet us in Perth, and with it Sylvia and I had explored all the remotest beauties of the Highlands. We ran up as far north as Inverness, and around to Oban, delighting in all the beauties of the heather-clad hills, the wild moors, the autumn-tinted glades, and the broad unruffled lochs. Afterwards we went round the Trossachs and motored back to London through Carlisle, the Lakes, North Wales and the Valley of the Wye, the most charming of all motor-runs in England.
Afterwards, Sylvia wanted to do some shopping, and we went over to Paris for ten days. There, while at the Meurice, her father, who chanced to be passing through Paris on his way from Brussels to Lyons, came unexpectedly one evening and dined with us in our private salon.
Pennington was just as elegant and epicurean as ever. He delighted in the dinner set before him, the hotel, of course, being noted for its cooking.
That evening we were a merry trio. I had not seen my father-in-law since the morning of our marriage, when I had called, and found him confined to his bed. Therefore we had both a lot to relate to him regarding our travels.
“I, too, have been moving about incessantly,” he remarked, as he poised his wine-glass in his hand, regarding the colour of its contents. “I was in Petersburg three weeks ago. I’m interested in some telegraph construction works there. We’ve just secured a big Government contract to lay a new line across Siberia.”
“I’ve written to you half-a-dozen times,” remarked his daughter, “but you never replied.”
“I’ve never had your letters, child,” he said. “Where did you address them?”
“Two I sent to the Travellers’ Club, here. Another I sent to the Hôtel de France, in Petersburg.”