‘Coming to dine?’ I asked.

‘No.  I’m dining with some friends at the Crillon.’

Then he looked me in the face, and his eyes were hot as I first remembered them.  ‘I hear I’ve to congratulate you, Hannay,’ and he held out a limp hand.

I never felt more antagonism in a human being.

‘You don’t like it?’ I said, for I guessed what he meant.

‘How on earth can I like it?’ he cried angrily.  ’Good Lord, man, you’ll murder her soul.  You an ordinary, stupid, successful fellow and she—­she’s the most precious thing God ever made.  You can never understand a fraction of her preciousness, but you’ll clip her wings all right.  She can never fly now . . .’

He poured out this hysterical stuff to me at the foot of the staircase within hearing of an elderly French widow with a poodle.  I had no impulse to be angry, for I was far too happy.

‘Don’t, Wake,’ I said.  ’We’re all too close together to quarrel.  I’m not fit to black Mary’s shoes.  You can’t put me too low or her too high.  But I’ve at least the sense to know it.  You couldn’t want me to be humbler than I felt.’

He shrugged his shoulders, as he went out to the street.  ’Your infernal magnanimity would break any man’s temper.’

I went upstairs to find Blenkiron, washed and shaven, admiring a pair of bright patent-leather shoes.

’Why, Dick, I’ve been wearying bad to see you.  I was nervous you would be blown to glory, for I’ve been reading awful things about your battles in the noospapers.  The war correspondents worry me so I can’t take breakfast.’

He mixed cocktails and clinked his glass on mine.  ’Here’s to the young lady.  I was trying to write her a pretty little sonnet, but the darned rhymes wouldn’t fit.  I’ve gotten a heap of things to say to you when we’ve finished dinner.’

Mary came in, her cheeks bright from the weather, and Blenkiron promptly fell abashed.  But she had a way to meet his shyness, for, when he began an embarrassed speech of good wishes, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.  Oddly enough, that set him completely at his ease.

It was pleasant to eat off linen and china again, pleasant to see old Blenkiron’s benignant face and the way he tucked into his food, but it was delicious for me to sit at a meal with Mary across the table.  It made me feel that she was really mine, and not a pixie that would vanish at a word.  To Blenkiron she bore herself like an affectionate but mischievous daughter, while the desperately refined manners that afflicted him whenever women were concerned mellowed into something like his everyday self.  They did most of the talking, and I remember he fetched from some mysterious hiding-place a great box of chocolates, which you could no longer buy in Paris, and the two ate them like spoiled children.  I didn’t want to talk, for it was pure happiness for me to look on.  I loved to watch her, when the servants had gone, with her elbows on the table like a schoolboy, her crisp gold hair a little rumpled, cracking walnuts with gusto, like some child who has been allowed down from the nursery for dessert and means to make the most of it.