He performed his never-omitted lover’s homage.

Nataly enfolded him in a homely smile.  ’A country-house?  We go and see it to-morrow?’

‘And you’ve been pining for a country home, my dear soul.’

’After the summer six weeks, the house in London does not seem a home to return to.’

’And next day, Nataly draws five thousand pounds for the first sketch of the furniture.’

‘There is the Creckholt . . .’ she had a difficulty in saying.

‘Part of it may do.  Lakelands requires—­but you will see to-morrow.’

After a close shutting of her eyes, she rejoined:  ‘It is not a cottage?’

’Well, dear, no:  when the Slave of the Lamp takes to building, he does not run up cottages.  And we did it without magic, all in a year; which is quite as good as a magical trick in a night.’  He drew her close to him.  ‘When was it my dear girl guessed me at work?’

‘It was the other dear girl.  Nesta is the guesser.’

’You were two best of souls to keep from bothering me; and I might have had to fib; and we neither of us like that.’  He noticed a sidling of her look.  ’More than the circumstances oblige:—­to be frank.  But now we can speak of them.  Wait—­and the change comes; and opportunely, I have found.  It’s true we have waited long; my darling has had her worries.  However, it ’s here at last.  Prepare yourself.  I speak positively.  You have to brace up for one sharp twitch—­the woman’s portion! as Natata says—­and it’s over.’  He looked into her eyes for comprehension; and not finding inquiry, resumed:  ’Just in time for the entry into Lakelands.  With the pronouncement of the decree, we present the licence . . . at an altar we’ve stood before, in spirit . . . one of the ladies of your family to support you:—­why not?  Not even then?’

‘No, Victor; they have cast me off.’

’Count on my cousins, the Duvidney ladies.  Then we can say, that those two good old spinsters are less narrow than the Dreightons.  I have to confess I rather think I was to blame for leaving Creckholt.  Only, if I see my girl wounded, I hate the place that did the mischief.  You and Fredi will clap hands for the country about Lakelands.’

‘Have you heard from her . . . of her . . . is it anything, Victor?’ Nataly asked him shyly; with not much of hope, but some readiness to be inflated.  The prospect of an entry into the big new house, among a new society, begirt by the old nightmares and fretting devils, drew her into staring daylight or furnace-light.

He answered:  ’Mrs. Burman has definitely decided.  In pity of us?—­to be free herself?—­who can say!  She ’s a woman with a conscience—­of a kind:  slow, but it brings her to the point at last.  You know her, know her well.  Fenellan has it from her lawyer—­her lawyer! a Mr. Carting; a thoroughly trustworthy man—­’

‘Fenellan, as a reporter?’

’Thoroughly to be trusted on serious matters.  I understand that Mrs. Burman:—­her health is awful:  yes, yes; poor woman! poor woman! we feel for her:—­she has come to perceive her duty to those she leaves behind.  Consider:  she has used the rod.  She must be tired out—­if human.  And she is.  One remembers traits.’