"When you leave us alone I am going to pull it all down"; and he whispered, "Darling, I love you," so close that his lips touched my ear, while he pretended he was not doing anything. I say, again, Robert has ways that would charm a stone image.
"How was Torquilstone last night?" Lady Merrenden asked, "and did you tell him anything?"
"Not a word," said Robert. "I wanted to wait and consult you both which would be best. Shall I go to him at once, or shall he be made to meet my Evangeline again, and let her fascinate him, as she is bound to do, and then tell him?"
"Oh, tell him straight!" I exclaimed, remembering his proclivities about the servants and that Veronique knows. "Then he cannot ever say we have deceived him."
"That is how I feel," said Robert.
"You take Evangeline to lunch, Aunt Sophia, and I will go back and feed with him, and tell him, and then come to you after."
"Yes, that will be best," she said, and it was settled that she should come in again and fetch me in an hour, when Robert should leave to go to Vavasour House. He went with her to the lift, and then he came back.
No--even in this locked book I am not going to write of that hour--it was too divine. If I had thought just sitting in the park was heaven, I now know there are degrees of heaven, and that Robert is teaching me up towards the seventh.
_Monday afternoon._ (Continued.)
I forgot to say a note came from Christopher by this morning"s post--it made me laugh when I read it, then it went out of my head; but when Lady Merrenden returned for me, and we were more or less sane again--Robert and I--I thought of it; so apparently did he. "Did you by chance hear from Christopher, whether he got your note last night or no?" he said.
I went and fetched it from my bedroom when I put on my hat. Robert read it aloud:
"TRAVELLER"S CLUB
"_Sunday night._
""_Souvent femme varie--fol qui se fie!_"
Hope you found your variation worth while!
C. C."
"What dam cheek!" he said, in his old way. He hasn"t used any "ornaments to conversation" since we have been--oh, I want to say it--engaged!
Then his eyes flashed. "Christopher had better be careful of himself! He will have to be answerable to me now."
"Do be prudent, Evangeline dear," Lady Merrenden said, gayly, "or you will have Robert breaking the head of every man in the street who even glances at you. He is frantically jealous."
"Yes, I know I am," said Robert, rearranging the tie on my blouse with that air of _sans gene_ and possession that pleases me so.
I belong to him now, and if my tie isn"t as he likes he has a perfect right to retie it, no matter who is there. That is his att.i.tude--not the _least_ ceremony or stuff, everything perfectly simple and natural.
It does make things agreeable. When I was, "Miss Travers" and he "Lord Robert," he was always respectful and unfamiliar--except that one night when rage made him pinch my finger. But now that I am _his_ Evangeline and he is _my_ Robert (thus he explained it to me in our paradise hour), I am his queen and his darling, but at the same time his possession and belonging, just the same as his watch or his coat--I adore it--and it does not make me the least "uppish," as one might have thought.
"Come, come, children," Lady Merrenden said at last, "we shall all be late."
So we started, dropping Robert at Vavasour House on our way. It is a splendid place, down one of those side streets looking on the Green Park, and has a small garden that side. I had never been down to the little square where it is before, but, of course, every one can see its splendid frontage from St. James"s Park, though I had never realized it was Vavasour House.
"Good luck!" whispered Lady Merrenden as Robert got out, and then we drove on.
Several people were lunching at Carlton House Terrace: cabinet ministers, and a clever novelist, and the great portrait painter, besides two or three charming women--one as pretty and smart as Lady Ver, but the others more ordinary looking, only so well mannered. No real frumps like the Montgomeries. We had a delightful lunch, and I tried to talk nicely and do my best to please my dear hostess. When they had all left I think we both began to feel excited, and long apprehensively for the arrival of Robert.
So we talked of the late guests.
"It amuses my husband to see a number of different kinds of people," she said; "but we had nothing very exciting to-day, I must confess, though sometimes the authors and auth.o.r.esses bore me, and they are often very disappointing--one does not any longer care to read their books after seeing them."
I said I could quite believe that.
"I do not go in for budding geniuses," she continued. "I prefer to wait until they have arrived, no matter their origin; then they have acquired a certain outside behavior on the way up, and it does not _froisse_ one so.
Merrenden is a great judge of human nature, and variety entertains him.
Left to myself, I fear I should be quite contented with less gifted people who were simply of one"s own world."
In all her talk one can see her thought and consideration for Lord Merrenden and his wishes and tastes.
"I always feel it is so cruel for him, our having no children," she said.
"The earldom becomes extinct, so I must make him as happy as I can."
What a dear and just woman!
At last we spoke of Robert, and she told me stories of his boyhood, amusing Eton sc.r.a.pes, and later feats. And how brave and splendid he had been in the war; and how the people all adored him at Torquilstone; and of his popularity and influence with them. "You must make him go into Parliament," she said.
Then Robert came into the room. Oh, his darling face spoke, there was no need for words. The duke, one could see, had been obdurate.
"Well," said Lady Merrenden.
Robert came straight over to me and took my face in his two hands.
"Darling," he said, "before everything I want you to know I love you better than anything else in the world, and nothing will make any difference," and he kissed me deliberately before his aunt. His voice was so moved, and we all felt a slight lump in our throats I know; then he stood in front of us, but he held my hand.
"Torquilstone was horrid, I can see," said Lady Merrenden. "What did he say, Robert? Tell us everything. Evangeline would wish it too, I am sure, as well as I."
Robert looked very pale and stern; one can see how firm his jaw is in reality, and how steady his dear, blue eyes.
"I told him I loved Evangeline, whom I understood he had met yesterday, and that I intended to marry her."
"And he said?" asked Lady Merrenden, breathless.
I only held tighter Robert"s hand.
"He swore like a trooper, he thumped his gla.s.s down on the table and smashed it--a disgusting exhibition of temper--I was ashamed of him. Then he said never, as long as he lived and could prevent it; that he had heard something of my infatuation, so as I am not given that way he had made inquiries, and found the family was most unsatisfactory. Then he had come here yesterday on purpose to see you--darling," turning to me, "and that he had judged for himself. The girl was a "devilish beauty" (his words, not mine), with the naughtiest, provoking eyes, and a mouth--No, I can"t say the rest, it makes me too mad," and Robert"s eyes flashed.
Lady Merrenden rose from her seat and came and took my other hand. I felt as if I could not stand too tall and straight.
"The long and short of it is, he has absolutely refused to have anything to do with the matter, says I need expect nothing further from him, and we have parted for good and all."
"Oh, Robert!" It was almost a cry from Lady Merrenden.
Robert put his arms round me, and his face changed to radiance.