_Reply paid_ was written on the envelope.
She stood quite still for a moment. Then she opened it slowly.
Telegrams from the Boy gave her a delicious memory of the way he used to jump about. He would be out of his chair, and sitting at her feet, before she knew he was going to move.
She opened it slowly, turned to a window, and read it.
"_How are you, dear? Please tell me. I am going to do my big fly to-morrow. I jolly well mean to break the record. Wish me luck._"
She took up the reply-paid form and wrote:
"_Quite well. Good luck; but please be careful, Little Boy Blue._"
She hesitated a moment, before writing the playful name by which she so often called him. But his telegram was so absolutely the Boy, all over. It was best he should know nothing of "the man she loved," who had gone out at the gate. It was best he should not know what she would have called him, had he been under the mulberry just now. She was--undoubtedly--going to marry the Professor. In which case she would never call the Boy anything but "Little Boy Blue." So she put it into her telegram, as a repartee to his audacious "dear." Then she went out, and sent it off herself. It was comforting to have something, however small, to do for him.
She came in again; dressed for the evening, and dined. She was thoroughly tired; and one sentence beat itself incessantly against the mirror of her reflection, like a frightened bird with a broken wing: "_He is going to do a big fly to-morrow.... He is going to do a big fly to-morrow! Little Boy Blue is going to fly and break the record._"
She sat in the stillness of her drawing-room, and tried to read. But between her eyes and the printed page, burned in letters of fire: "_He is going to fly to-morrow._"
She went down the garden to the chairs beneath the mulberry-tree. It was cooler there; but the loneliness was too fierce an agony.
She walked up and down the lawn, now bathed in silvery moonlight. "_He is going to do a big fly to-morrow. He jolly well means to break the record._"
She pa.s.sed in, and went to her bedroom. She lay in the darkness and tried to sleep. She tried in vain. What if he got into cross-currents? What if the propeller broke? What if the steering-gear twisted? She began remembering every detail he had told herself and Mollie; when she sat listening, thinking of him as Mollie"s lover, though all the while he had been her--Little Boy Blue.... "_Oh of course then it is all U P.--But there must be pioneers!_"
At last she could bear it no longer. She lighted her candle, and rose.
She went to her medicine cupboard, and did a thing she had never done before, in the whole of her healthy life. She took a sleeping draught.
The draught was one of Miss Ann"s; left behind at the close of a recent visit. She knew it contained chiefly bromide; harmless but effective.
She put out the light, and lay once more in darkness.
The bromide began to act.
The bird with the broken wing became less insistent.
The absent Boy drew near, and bent over, kneeling beside her.
She talked to him softly. Her voice sounded far away, and unlike her own. "Be careful, Little Boy Blue," she said. "You may jolly well--what an expression!--break the record if you like; but don"t break yourself; because, if you do, you will break my heart."
The bromide was acting strongly now. The bird with the broken wing had gone. There was a strange rhythmical throbbing in her ears. It was the Boy"s aeroplane; but it had started without him. She knew sleep was coming; merciful oblivion. Yet now she was too happy to wish to sleep.
The Boy drew nearer.
"Oh, Boy dear, I love you so," she whispered into the throbbing darkness; "I love you so."
"I know you do, dear," said the Boy. "It is almost unbelievable, Christobel; but I know you do."
Then she put up her arms, and drew him to her breast.
Thus the Boy--though far away--marched round.
"_And the evening and the morning were the sixth day._"
AN INTERLUDE
"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
When Miss Charteris opened her eyes, the sun was streaming into her room. The sense of having slept heavily and unnaturally lay upon her.
She had not heard Martha"s entry; but her blinds were up, and the tea on the tray beside her bed was still fresh and hot.
She took a cup, and the after-effects of the bromide seemed to leave her.
She dressed, and went downstairs.
On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor"s letter.
When she had poured out her coffee and b.u.t.tered her toast, she opened and read it.
The letter was exactly such as she had always dreamed the Professor would write, if he ever came to the point of making her a proposal. He touched on their long friendship; on how much it had meant to them both. He said he had often hoped for the possibility of a closer tie, but had not felt justified in suggesting it, until he was in a position to offer her a suitable home and income. This was now fortunately the case; therefore he hastened to write and plead his cause, though keenly conscious of how little there was in himself calculated to call forth in a woman the affection which it was his earnest hope and desire to win. She had trusted him as a friend, an intellectual guide and comrade, during many years. If she could now bring herself to trust him in a yet more intimate relation, he would endeavour never to disappoint or fail her.
The letter was signed:
"_Yours in sincere devotion,_ "_KENRICK HARVEY._"
A postscript requested to be allowed to call, at the usual hour, that afternoon, for a reply.
Miss Charteris wrote a brief note of thanks and appreciation, and gave the Professor leave to call at three.
The Professor called at three.
He knocked and rang, and fumbled long over the umbrella-stand in the hall. He seemed to be taking all the umbrellas out, and putting them back again.
At last he appeared at the door of the drawing-room, where Miss Charteris awaited him. He was very nervous. He repeated the substance of his letter, only rather less well expressed. He alluded to Miss Ann, and to the extreme happiness and pleasure to her of having Christobel as a sister. But he completely ignored, both in the letter and in conversation, Miss Ann"s betrayal of Christobel"s confidence.
For this she was grateful to him.
As soon as the Professor, having floundered through the unusual waters of expressed sentiment, stepped out on to the high and dry path of an actual question, Miss Charteris answered that question in the affirmative, and accepted the Professor"s offer.
He rose, and held her hand for a few moments, looking at her with great affection through his gla.s.ses, which did not at all impede the warmth of his regard; in fact, being powerful convex lenses, they magnified it. Then he kissed her rather awkwardly on the brow, and hurried back to his seat.