The Talleyrand Maxim, J. S. Fletcher [books to read fiction TXT] 📗

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!”

 

THE END