"Mother doesn't want to stop you. It's your father."
"I'll write and tell Daddy. Besides, it's too late. If I left Colin
to-morrow it wouldn't stop the scandal. My reputation's gone and I can't
get it back, can I?"
"Dear Anne, you don't know how adorable you are without it."
"Look here, Eliot, what did your mother tell _you_ for?"
"Same reason. To put me off, too."
They looked at each other and smiled. Across their memories, across the
years of war, across Anne's agony they smiled. Besides its courage and
its young, candid cynicism, Anne's smile expressed her utter trust in
him.
"As if," Eliot said, "it would have made the smallest difference."
"Wouldn't it have?"
"No, Anne. Nothing would."
"That's what Jerrold said. And _he_ thought it. I wondered what he
meant."
"He meant what I mean."
The moments passed, ticked off by the beating of his heart, time and his
heart beating violently together. Not one of them was his moment, not
one would serve him for what he had to say, falling so close on their
intolerable conversation. He meant to ask Anne to marry him; but if he
did it now she would suspect him of chivalry; it would look as if he
wanted to make up to her for all she had lost through Colin; as if he
wanted more than anything to save her.
So Eliot, who had waited so long, waited a little longer, till the
evening of his last day.
Eliot saw it.
He thought: "It doesn't matter. She's so utterly good that nothing can
touch her. All the same, if she marries me she'll be safe from this sort
of thing."
They had come to the dip of the valley and the Manor Farm water.
"Let's go up the beech walk," he said.
They went up and sat in the beech ring where Anne had sat with Jerrold
three months ago. Eliot never realised how repeatedly Jerrold had been
before him.