Mrs Lace had now, more or less, recovered her composure. She knew that she looked pretty when she cried, so long as the crying only lasted a little while. Therefore, at the psychological moment she usually stopped. She did so now, and proceeded to comb her hair and powder her nose, peeping from beneath dewy eyelashes at Noel from time to time. There was an expression on his face which she interpreted as a warning not to go too far. In actual fact he was merely reminding himself that all women like an occasional good cry; it was a tax which lovers had to pay. He hoped that she would cut it short, meanwhile steeling himself to endurance.
‘You see, darling,’ she went on presently, ‘it is rather cruel, the way you never tell me anything about yourself.’
Typical grievance, thought Noel. ‘My darling,’ he said, ‘there really isn’t much to tell. The history of my life up to date is extremely dull, believe me.’
‘The smallest things about you are interesting to me,’ said Anne-Marie, passionately.
‘Well,’ said Noel, with that bright facetiousness which was such an unattractive feature of his mind, ‘shall we begin at the beginning? I was born of poor but honest parents –’
‘Where?’
‘Where was I born? I don’t know exactly, it was somewhere in the Balkans. My father, you see, was an archaeologist, and he and my mother spent the first years of their married life wandering about in that part of the Continent. I know she had a bad time when I was born, as I was premature, and they could not get hold of a proper doctor for ages. They were both so vague, always.’
‘Yes, I see. So then where were you educated?’
‘In England, of course. After the War broke out circumstances compelled my parents to settle down at Hampton Court, and I went to a private school and to Eton in the ordinary way. They did want to send me to some foreign university, but there were various complications and in the end I went to Oxford.’
‘And your parents – did they never go back?’
‘No. After the War they said they were too old (they had married rather late in life). Besides, things had become so changed then, they preferred to stay on at Hampton Court. Now they are both dead.’
This conversation seemed to confirm suspicions which were already forming in Mrs Lace’s mind. Noel was obviously the rightful king of some Ruritania, preparing in the solitude of an English village for the coup d’état which should restore to him his throne. Any day now the courier might arrive and announce that the time was ripe, the people and the regiments in a proper frame of mind to welcome him back to the land of his fathers. Those two strange men whom she had noticed hanging about the Jolly Roger were doubtless members of his personal bodyguard. Her total ignorance of central European politics and geography, coupled with an imaginative nature, enabled her to treat this conjecture as though it were a solid fact; she did not have the smallest misgiving about it from the first moment of its inception.
‘What made you think of coming down here?’ she asked, boldly.
Noel looked embarrassed. It would be difficult for him to explain his exact motives for coming to Chalford. He wondered whether Mrs Lace had spoken about this to Jasper, and if so what impression she had received from him. In order to be on the safe side, he muttered vaguely, ‘Oh, I don’t know, just waiting for something to turn up.’
The courier. The news from his Capital. ‘And how long will it be before that happens? How much longer do you expect to be here?’
‘Just as long as I can go on seeing you every day, darling Anne-Marie.’
‘I wish you would take me away from here,’ she cried, passionately.
Noel frowned. He had been anticipating some such development to this conversation. ‘My dear,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘Whatever would your husband say if I did?’
‘He would divorce me, and I shouldn’t care a pin.’
‘My darling Anne-Marie,’ said Noel, kissing her hand and holding it in his, ‘I must explain to you, I should have explained before – that I am not in a position to marry anybody. If I were, it would be my dream of dreams to marry you. But, for many reasons this is not possible, alas! You must take my word for it, dearest.’
Now for the storm, he thought, now for half an hour of hysterical reproaches. He knew exactly what would be said, he had heard it all before. ‘To you I have been nothing except an agreeable summer holiday’s diversion, but to me you are life itself,’ and so on. It would take all his tact at the end of it to keep things on their old footing, as he very much hoped he would succeed in doing. For he still thought that Mrs Lace was a wildly attractive young woman.
There was a pause, during which he could feel the storm gathering. Metaphorically speaking, he cowered, putting up his coat collar. But to his enormous surprise and relief no storm broke. Mrs Lace encircled his neck with her arms and whispered in his ear, ‘I quite understand, my own angel; don’t let’s think of this any more. We must be happy together whilst happiness is still possible, and try to forget that the day is at hand when we must part, perhaps for ever. And when that day does come, let us be brave and hide, from the world at any rate if not from each other, our broken hearts.’
Noel could hardly believe his ears. He thought that Mrs Lace was by far the most remarkable woman he had ever met.
‘I always told you she was something out of the ordinary,’ he said to Jasper that evening, after repeating the whole conversation for his benefit. They were on the best of terms now, Noel feeling so much gratitude for Jasper’s surprisingly
