Vera (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...you." (Was this same parlourmaid here in Vera's time? Lucy asked herself very privately and unconsciously and beneath the concerned attentiveness she was concentrating on Wemyss.) "What lovely kingcups " she said aloud. "Oh yes, there they are--I hadn't noticed them. Yes, aren't they? They're my birthday flowers." And he repeated his formula: "It's my birthday and Spring's." A But Lucy, of course, didn't know the proper ritual, it being her first experience of one of Wemyss's birthdays, besides having wished him his many happy returns hours ago when he first opened his eyes and found hers gazing at him with love; so all she did was to make the natural but unfortunate remark that surely Spring began on the 21st of March, --or was it the 25th? No, that was Christmas Day--no, she didn't mean that "You're always saying things and then saying you didn't mean them," interrupted Wemyss, vexed, for he thought that Lucy of all people should have recognised the allegorical nature of his formula. If it had been Vera, now, --but even Vera had managed to understand that much. "I wish you would begin with what you do mean, it would be so much simpler. What, pray, do you mean now?" "I can't think," said Lucy timidly, for she had offended him again, and this time she couldn't even remotely imagine how. XVII HE got over it, however. There was a particularly well-made souffle and this helped. Also Lucy kept on looking at him very tenderly, and it was the first time she had sat at his table in his beloved home, realising the dreams of months that she should sit just there with him, his little bobbed-haired Love, and gradually therefore he recovered and smiled at her again. But what power she had to hurt him, thought Wemyss; it was so great because his love for her was so great. She should be very careful how she wielded it. Her Everard was made very sensitive by his love. He gazed at her solemnly, ...