Edward was lounging in his chair smoking a
cigar and he said nothing for quite five minutes. The candles
glowed in the green shades; the reflections were green in the
glasses of the book-cases that held guns and fishing-rods. Over the
mantelpiece was the brownish picture of the white horse. Those
were the quietest moments that I have ever known. Then,
suddenly, Edward looked me straight in the eyes and said:
"Look here, old man, I wish you would drive with Nancy and me
to the station tomorrow."
I said that of course I would drive with him and Nancy to the
station on the morrow. He lay there for a long time, looking along
the line of his knees at the fluttering fire, and then suddenly, in a
perfectly calm voice, and without lifting his eyes, he said:
"I am so desperately in love with Nancy Rufford that I am dying of
it."
Poor devil--he hadn't meant to speak of it. But I guess he just had
to speak to somebody and I appeared to be like a woman or a
solicitor. He talked all night.
Well, he carried out the programme to the last breath.
It was a very clear winter morning, with a good deal of frost in it.
The sun was quite bright, the winding road between the heather
and the bracken was very hard.
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