"Do you
know what I want to do?"
"No--I think not," he said. "What?"
"If it's possible--to forget all about this," she replied. "And--if
that's also possible--to help my mother to forget, too. Don't think too
hardly of her--I don't suppose any of us know how much all this
place--and the money--meant to her."
"I've got no hard thoughts about her," said Collingwood. "I'm sorry for
her. But--is it too soon to talk about the future?"
Nesta looked at him in a way which showed him that she only half
comprehended the question. But there was sufficient comprehension in her
eyes to warrant him in taking her hands in his.
"You know why I didn't go to India?" he said, bending his face to hers.
"I--guessed!" she answered shyly.
Then Collingwood, at this suddenly arrived supreme moment, became
curiously bereft of speech. And after a period of silence, during which,
being in the shadow of a grove of beech-trees which kindly concealed
them from the rest of the world, they held each other's hands, all that
he could find to say was one word.
"Well?"
Nesta laughed.
"Well--what?" she whispered.
Collingwood suddenly laughed too and put his arm round her.
"It's no good!" he said. "I've often thought of what I'd to say to
you--and now I've forgotten all. Shall I say it all at once!"
"Wouldn't it be best?" she murmured with another laugh.
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