clock of life.

Oh, now I know. It is being in love--frightfully in love, as we are. I
must try and keep my head, though, and remember all the remarks of Lady
Ver about things and men. Fighters all of them, and they must never feel
quite sure. It will be dreadfully difficult to tease Robert, because he is
so direct and simple, but I must try, I suppose. Perhaps being so very
pretty as I am, and having all the male creatures looking at me with
interest, will do, and be enough to keep him worried, and I won't have to
be tiresome myself. I hope so, because I really do love him so extremely,
I would like to let myself go, and be as sweet as I want to.

I am doing all the things I thought perfectly silly to hear of before. I
kissed his letter, and slept with it on the pillow beside me, and this
morning woke at six, and turned on the electric light to read it again.
The part where the "darlings" come is quite blurry, I see, in
daylight--that is where I kissed most, I know.

I seem to be numb to everything else. Whether Lady Ver is angry or not
does not bother me. I did play fair. She could not expect me to go on
pretending when Robert had said straight out he loved me. But I am sure
she will be angry, though, and probably rather spiteful about it.

I will write her the simple truth in a day or two, when we see how things
go. She will guess by Robert not going to Sedgwick.

CLARIDGE'S

_Monday afternoon._

At half-past eleven this morning Lady Merrenden came, and the room was all
full of flowers that Robert had sent, bunches and bunches of violets and
gardenias. She kissed me, and held me tight for a moment, and we did not
speak. Then she said, in a voice that trembled a little:

"Robert is so very dear to me--almost my own child--that I want him to be
happy; and you, too, Evangeline--I may call you that, may not I?"

I squeezed her hand.

"You are the echo of my youth, when I, too, knew the wild spring-time of
love. So, dear, I need not tell you that you may count upon my doing what
I can for you both."

Then we talked and talked.

"I must admit," she said at last, "that I was prejudiced in your favor for
your dear father's sake, but in any case my opinion of Robert's judgment
is so high, I would have been prepared to find you charming, even without
that. He has the rarest qualities, he is the