"Isn't my Evangeline a darling, Aunt Sophia?" he said. "And don't you love her red hair?"
"It is beautiful," said Lady Merrenden.
"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 Véronique 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!