“Well, that’s over!” he exclaimed. “I must go back and hand this will over to the two trustees. But you, Collingwood—stay here a bit—if ever that girl needs company and help, it’s now!”
“I’m stopping,” said Collingwood.
He remained for a time where Eldrick left him; at last he went down to the hall and out into the gardens. And presently Nesta came to him there, and as if with a mutual understanding they walked away into the nearer stretches of the park. Normandale had never looked more beautiful than it did that afternoon, and in the midst of a silence which up to then neither of them had cared to break, Collingwood suddenly turned to the girl who had just lost it.
“Are you sure that you won’t miss all this—greatly?” he asked. “Just think!”
“I’d rather lose more than this, however fond I’d got of it, than go through what I’ve gone through lately,” she answered frankly. “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.
“Then—you’re going to marry me?” he asked.
“Am I to answer—all at once?” she said.
“One word will do!” he exclaimed, drawing her to him.
“Ah!” she whispered as she lifted her face to his. “I couldn’t say it all in one word. But—we’ve lots of time before us!”
Colophon
The Talleyrand Maxim
was published in 1920 by
J. S. Fletcher.
This ebook was produced for
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The cover page is adapted from
Taiteilija Fahle Basilier,
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