Part 116

Cecily turned to her husband. She smiled and blushed a little.

"I'll take you as far as your room," said he.

Mina and Neeld watched them go upstairs; then each dropped into a chair in the hall. Mason passed by, chuckling to himself; Neeld looked harmless, and he dared to speak to him.

"Well, this is the next best thing to Mr Harry coming back to his own, sir," said he.

That was it. That was the feeling. Mason had got it!

"I'm glad of it after all," Neeld confessed to Mina.

"Wait, wait!" she urged, sitting straight in her chair, apparently listening for any sound. Her obvious anxiety extended its contagion to him; he understood better how nice the issue was.

"Will you come in the garden with me after dinner?" asked Harry, as Cecily and he went upstairs.

"Of course--when they've gone."

"No, directly. I want to say a word to you."

"We must escape then!" she laughed. "Oh, well, they'll expect that, I suppose." Her delight in her love bubbled over in her laugh.

They came to the door of her room, and she stopped.

"Here?" asked Harry. "Yes, it was my mother's room. You reign now in my mother's stead."

His voice had a ring of triumph in it. He kissed her hand. "Dinner as soon as you're ready," said he.

She laughed again and blushed as she opened the door and stood holding the handle.

"Won't you come in--just for a minute, Harry? I--I haven't changed this room at all."

"All is yours to change or to keep unchanged," said he.

"Oh, I've no reason for changing anything now. Everything's to be put back in the Long Gallery!" She paused, and then said again, "Won't you come in for just a minute, Harry?"

"I must go back to our friends downstairs," he answered.

The pretext was threadbare. What did the guests matter? They would do well enough. It had cost her something to ask--a little effort--since the request still seemed so strange, since its pleasure had a fear in it. And now she was refused.

"I ask you," she said, with a sudden haughtiness.

He stood looking at her a moment. There was a brisk step along the corridor.

"Oh, I beg your Ladyship's pardon. I didn't know your Ladyship had come upstairs." It was Cecily's maid.

"In about twenty minutes," said Harry with a nod. Slowly Cecily followed the maid inside.

After he had washed his hands Harry rejoined his friends. They were still sitting in the hall with an air of expectancy.

"You've told her?" cried Mina. "Oh, yes, Mr Neeld has told me everything."

"Well, I've mentioned the bare fact----" Neeld began.

"Yes, yes, that's the only thing that matters. You've told her, Harry?" The last two days made him "Harry" and her "Mina."