“Hate to,” said Elliott promptly.

“Well, then,” said Anna-Felicitas, gentle but disappointed.  She rather wished now she hadn’t mentioned it.

“I’d take you out of earshot,” said Elliott.

She was much relieved.  She had done what she felt might perhaps be regarded by Aunt Alice as her duty as a lady, and could now give herself up with a calm conscience to hearing whatever else he might have to say.

And he had an incredible amount to say, and all of it of the most highly gratifying nature.  On the whole, looking at it all round and taking one thing with another, Anna-Felicitas came to the conclusion that this was the most agreeable and profitable morning she had ever spent.  She sat there for hours, and they all flew.  People passed in cars and saw her, and it didn’t disturb her in the least.  She perfectly remembered she ought to be helping Anna-Rose pick and arrange the flowers for the tea-tables, and she didn’t mind.  She knew Anna-Rose would be astonished and angry at her absence, and it left her unmoved.  By midday she was hopelessly compromised in the eyes of Acapulco, for the people who had motored through the lane told the people who hadn’t what they had seen.  Once a great car passed with a small widow in it, who looked astonished when she saw the pair but had gone almost before Elliott could call out and wave to her.

“That’s my sister,” he said.  “You and she will love each other.”

“Shall we?” said Anna-Felicitas, much pleased by this suggestion of continuity in their relations; and remarked that she looked as if she hadn’t got a husband.

“She hasn’t.  Poor little thing.  Rotten luck.  Rotten.  I hate people to die now.  It seems so infernally unnatural of them, when they’re not in the fighting.  He’s only been dead a month.  And poor old Dellogg was such a decent chap.  She isn’t going anywhere yet, or I’d bring her up to tea this afternoon.  But it doesn’t matter.  I’ll take you to her.”

“Shall you?” said Anna-Felicitas, again much pleased.  Dellogg.  The name swam through her mind and swam out again.  She was too busy enjoying herself to remark it and its coincidences now.

“Of course.  It’s the first thing one does.”

“What first thing?”

“To take the divine girl to see one’s relations.  Once one has found her.  Once one has had”—­his voice fell to a whisper—­“the God-given luck to find her.”  And he laid his hand very gently on hers, which were clasped together in her lap.

This was a situation to which Anna-Felicitas wasn’t accustomed, and she didn’t know what to do with it.  She looked down at the hand lying on hers, and considered it without moving.  Elliott was quite silent now, and she knew he was watching her face.  Ought she, perhaps, to be going?  Was this, perhaps, one of the moments in life when the truly judicious went?  But what a pity to go just when everything was so pleasant.  Still, it must be nearly lunch-time.  What would Aunt Alice do in a similar situation?  Go home to lunch, she was sure.  Yet what was lunch when one was rapidly arriving, as she was sure now that she was, at the condition of being in love?  She must be, or she wouldn’t like his hand on hers.  And she did like it.