Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/330

318 "And the date?"

"The fifteenth of June—I don't know what you mean by asking me."

"And to-day's the first of July," he said, and sighed. "Well, well!—if your Highness will allow me, I'll go and see whether your aunt's light is out, and if it is, we'll attempt the re-entrance."

He went. She shivered, waiting for what felt like hours. And the resentment against her aunts grew faint in the light of her resentment against her lover's messenger, and this, in its turn, was outshone by her anger against her lover. He had played cricket. He had risked his life—on the very day whose evening should have crowned that life by giving her to his arms. She set her teeth. Then she yawned and shivered again. It was an English July, and very cold. And the slow minutes crept past. What a fool she had been! Why had she not made a fight for her liberty—for her right to see Harry if she chose to see him? The aunts would never have stood up against a well-planned, determined, disagreeable resistance. In the light of this doctor's talk the whole thing