Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/202

190 'Yes.'

'And didn't you say then that I had?'

'Yes.'

'And didn't I tell you that I had not?'

'Ye—es.'

'And didn't you refuse to believe me?'

'Ye—e—es.'

'And what is that but telling me, straightly and directly, that I had lied to you?'

'I don't understand it,' she said, piteously, bewildered. I walked round the table, with my hands in my pockets.

Then, standing in the middle of the open window, I stared out into the dull evening and my thoughts. I do not know how long I stood so: maybe scarcely two minutes, but it seemed more than two hours. I roused myself with a sigh, turned round, and going to her, knelt down by her knees; put my arms round her, and kissed her.'

How the child smiled, and cried, and laughed, and caressed me!

We came on to Paris in the first week or so of September, to the Hôtel de Manchester. A letter had arrived there for me the night before, from Strachan. He expressed surprise at my flight in the night time, and hoped that there was nothing serious the matter with me? But Mrs. Strachan had been pestering him to take her and the girls to Paris for a fortnight, and as his term at the Queen's College did not begin till the end of October (by-the-by he had not informed me that he had just got the chair of Natural History there, had he?), he thought he might manage it (say) halfway through September. We could talk over matters about the Book then. Parker had agreed to publish it all right; but there was some lumber about plates, etc. He would write again shortly, or, perhaps better, when he arrived in Paris.

I answered this letter at once.

First, as regarded the Book. No expense was to be spared to make it attractive. That was my affair, or rather it was Mr. Brooke's own. I only held his money and property as a guardian till Mr. Starkie returned from Africa, when I should hand it over to him with