Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/239

 that she could not have laid her head on her pillow before she had seen her dear Mrs. Vivian.

"Do you suppose I would wait because I am married?" she inquired, with a keen little smile in her charming eyes. "I am not so much married as that, I can tell you! Do you think I look much as if I were married, with no one to bring me here to-night but Captain Lovelock?"

"I am sure Captain Lovelock is a very gallant escort," said Mrs. Vivian.

"Oh, he was not afraid—that is, he was not afraid of the journey, though it lay all through those dreadful wild Champs Elysées. But when we arrived, he was afraid to come in—to come up here. Captain Lovelock is so modest, you know, in spite of all the success he had in America. He will tell you about the success he had in America; it quite makes up for the defeat of the British army in the Revolution. They were defeated in the Revolution, the British, weren't they? I always told him so, but he insists they were not. 'How do we come to be free, then?' I always ask him; 'I suppose you admit that we are free.' Then he becomes personal, and says that I am free enough, certainly. But it's the general fact I mean; I wish you would tell him about the general fact. I think he would believe you, because he knows you know a great deal about history and all that. I don't mean this evening, but some time when it is convenient. He didn't want to come in—he wanted to stay in the carriage and smoke a cigar; he thought you wouldn't like it, his coming with me the first time. But I told him he needn't mind that, for I would certainly explain. I would be very careful to let you know that I brought him only as a substitute. A substitute for whom? A substitute for my husband, of course. My dear Mrs. Vivian, of course I ought to bring you some pretty message from Gordon—that he is dying to 231