"I had a letter from Father this morning," she said. "He wants to know if I am aware he has accepted Sir Alexander Cooper's invitation for me for July and August, to the Villa Esmeralda in Venice."
"July and August?" said Clifford.
"Oh, I wouldn't stay all that time. Are you sure you wouldn't come?"
"I won't travel abroad," said Clifford promptly.
She took her flowers to the window.
"Do you mind if I go?" she said. "You know it was promised, for this summer."
"For how long would you go?"
"Perhaps three weeks."
There was silence for a time.
"Well," said Clifford slowly, and a little gloomily. "I suppose I could stand it for three weeks: if I were absolutely sure you'd want to come back."
"I should want to come back," she said, with quiet simplicity, heavy with conviction. She was thinking of the other man.
Clifford felt her conviction, and somehow he believed her, he believed it was for him. He felt immensely relieved, joyful at once.
"In that case," he said, "I think it would be all right, don't you?"
"I think so," she said.
"You'd enjoy the change?"
She looked up at him with strange blue eyes.
"I should like to see Venice again," she said, "and to bathe from one of the shingle islands across the lagoon. But you know I loathe the Lido! And I don't fancy I shall like Sir Alexander Cooper and Lady Cooper. But if Hilda is there, and we have a gondola of our own: yes, it will be rather lovely. I do wish you'd come."
She said it sincerely. She would so love to make him happy, in these ways.
"Ah, but think of me, though, at the Gare du Nord: at Calais quay!"
"But why not? I see other men carried in litter-chairs, who have been wounded in the war. Besides, we'd motor all the way."
"We should need to take two men."
"Oh no! We'd manage with Field. There would always be another man there."
