Chapter 30 - Page 2

together - a great deal of it since then. Operates in the stock
market.

A supper was waiting for us at home and we sat a long time at the
table. I was burning for a talk with Hope but how was I to manage
it? We rose with the others and went and sat down together in a
corner of the great parlour. We talked of that night at the White
Church in Faraway when we heard Nick Goodall play and she had
felt the beginning of a new life.

'I've heard how well you did last year,' she said, 'and how nice you
were to the girls. A friend wrote me all about it. How attentive you
were to that little Miss Brown!

'But decently polite,' I answered. 'One has to have somebody or - or
be a monk.

'One has to have somebody!' she said, quickly, as she picked at the
flower on her bosom and looked down at it soberly. 'That is true
one has to have somebody and, you know, I haven't had any lack
of company myself. By the way, I have news to tell you.

She spoke slowly and in a low voice with a touch of sadness in it. I
felt the colour mounting to my face.

'News!' I repeated. 'What news, I-lope?

'I am going away to England,' she said, 'with Mrs Fuller if - if
mother will let me. I wish you would write and ask her to let me
go.

I was unhorsed. What to say I knew not, what it meant I could
vaguely imagine. There was a moment of awkward silence.

'Of course I will ask her if you wish to go,' I said. 'When do you
sail?

'They haven't fixed the day yet.

She sat looking down at her fan, a beautiful, filmy thing between
braces of ivory. Her knees were crossed, one dainty foot showing
under ruffles of lace. I looked at her a moment dumb with
admiration.

'What a big man you have grown to be Will,' she said presently. 'I
am almost afraid of you now.

She was still looking down at the fan and that little foot was
moving nervously. Now was my time. I began framing an avowal.
I felt a wild impulse to throw my strong arms about her and draw
her close to me and feel the pink velvet of her fair face upon mine.
If I had only done it! But what with the strangeness and grandeur
of that big room, the voices of the others who were sitting in the
library, near by, the mystery of the spreading crinoline that was
pressing upon my knees, I had not half the courage of a lover.

'My friend writes me that you are in love,' she said, opening her
fan and moving it slowly, as she looked up at me.

'She is right I must confess it,' I said, 'I am madly, hopelessly in
love. It is time you knew it Hope and I want your counsel.

She rose quickly and turned her face away.

'Do not tell me - do not speak of it again - I forbid you,' she
answered coldly.