"Well?" asked Ronnie, turning with a scowl.
François was ill at ease.
"Tomorrow my brother is coming from Interlaken, may I have an evening
for myself, M'sieur?"
Ronald was angry for many reasons: he was not in the mood to grant
favors.
"You have Sundays and you have your holidays. That's enough," he
said.
François went out crestfallen.
"I suppose you think I'm unkind," said Ronnie with a laugh, as he
helped take off her coat. "But if you give that sort of people an
inch, they'll take the earth."
He dropped his hands upon her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
"It is lovely to have you here. You're two hours too soon--"
"Am I?" she asked in alarm. "I was so upset last night that I don't
know what you said."
"I said ten o'clock, but it doesn't matter. Only François would have
been gone by then. How lovely you are, Evie! How slim and straight
and desirable!"
Suddenly she was in his arms, his face against hers. She struggled,
pushing him away, escaping at last, too breathless for speech.
"You smother me," she gasped. "Don't kiss me like that, Ronnie.
Let's talk. You know I oughtn't to be here," she urged. "But I did
so want to see your beautiful house."
He did not take his eyes from her. "You are going to do what I asked
you?"
She nodded, shook her head, her heart going furiously. "I don't
know--Ronald, I do love you, but I'm so--so frightened."
He drew her down to him and she sat demurely on the edge of the deep
lounge chair he occupied.
"And I'll take you to--where shall I take you?" he bantered.
"Somewhere in Italy, you said."
"Palermo! Glorious Palermo--darling, think of what it will be, just
you and I. No more snatched meetings and disagreeable sisters, eh?"
Evie was thinking: he did not break in upon her thoughts. She was
good to see. More attractive in her silence, for she had the
slightest of cockney twangs.
"I wish Christina could come," she said at last; a note of defiance
was in her tone. "A change like that would be splendid for her, and
I've always planned to give her one."
"Christina? Good lord! Come with us? You mad little thing, I'm not
running a sanatorium."
He laughed, leaning back in the chair to look up at her.
"Ronnie, I know it is awful nerve on my part--but if you love me--"
He expected this. The philosophies he imparted seldom survived the
acid test which opportunity applied.
"I suppose," she went on nervously, "it would be too much of a
come-down to think of--of marrying me?"
"Marriage!" His voice was reproving, his manner that of a man
grievously hurt.
"You know what I think--what we both think about marriage, Evie?"
"It is--it is respectable anyway."
"Respectable!" he scoffed. "Who respects you? Who thinks any worse
of you if you aren't married? People respect you for your
independence. Marriage! It is a form of bondage invented by
professional Christians who make a jolly good living out of it."
"Well, religion is something. And the Bible--"
Ronnie jumped up.
"We'll try the luck, Evie!" He went to a shelf and took down a book.
Evie was a dubious spectator. The fallibility of the method seemed
open to question when such enormous issues were at stake. Yet she
accepted a trifle reluctantly, the little sword he handed to her, and
thrust it between the pages of the closed book.
She opened it at the passage the sword had found.
"'Woe unto you--'" she began, but he snatched the book from her hands.
"No, silly," he said, and read glibly. "'There is no fear in love:
perfect love casteth out fear!'"
Evie was skeptical.
"You made it up!" she accused. "I mean, you only pretended it was
there. I know that passage. I learned it at school--it is in John."
He chuckled, delighted at her astuteness. "You little bishop," he
said, and kissed her. "Now sit and amuse yourself. I want to speak
to François."
He was on his way to the pantry to dismiss François to his home when
the bell sounded. He stopped François with a gesture.