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 gêne 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 attitude--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 authoresses bore me, and they are often very disappointing--one does not any longer care to read their books after seeing them."