ten days just when the Durbar was over! It really must be coming at last. Yet how awful if I really were on the wrong tack. I felt 'cold and hot all over,' as Ermyntrude would have expressed it.
'How is the Duchess?' I asked, trying to appear as if I were thinking of nothing but her Grace's health.
'Quite well, thanks,' he replied, 'and, by the way, she sent you many messages and a letter.'
He pulled it out from the inside pocket of his coat as he spoke, and gave it to me. It was the kind of double-size envelope that the Duchess always uses, addressed in her large, great sprawling handwriting. It was sealed on the back with a dear little strawberry-leaved coronet. Surely that could only mean one thing. Surely it must be coming at last. Bless the man, why on earth didn't he speak out. Most men rush in head first, and blurt it out straight away. I had never met a man like this before who hung about and skirmished and seemed to enjoy lingering over it and protracting it as long as possible.
I toyed with the letter in my hands, my eyes upon it, wondering what its contents might be. Lord Hendley didn't speak, and I felt I positively could not look up and catch his eye just then. I grew desperate. Suddenly I jumped up.
'There's Berengaria coming back,' I said hastily, looking as if I heard the sound of wheels on the road. That did it. He jumped up quickly too.
'I love you,' he said.
