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Mrs. Hylton made no objection, beyond stipulating that Ella must not be allowed to tire herself after her journey, and so, a few minutes later, Miss Hylton came down in her pretty summer hat and light cape, and she and George were allowed to set out.

Once outside the house, he drew a long breath of mingled relief and pleasure: ‘By Jove, Ella, I am glad to get you back again! I say, how jolly you do look in that hat! Now, do you know where I’m going to take you?’

‘It will be quietest in the Gardens,’ said Ella.

‘Ah, but that’s not where you’re going now,’ he said with a delicious assumption of authority; ‘you’re coming with me to see a certain house on Campden Hill you may have heard of.’

‘That will be delightful. I do want to see our dear little house again very much. And, George, we will go carefully over all the rooms, and settle what can be done with each of them. Then we can begin directly; we haven’t too much time.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said with a conscious laugh, ‘it won’t take so much time as you think.’

‘Oh, but it must–to do properly. And while I’ve been away I’ve had some splendid ideas for some of the rooms–I’ve planned them out so beautifully. You know that delightful little room at the back?–the one I said should be your own den, with the window all festooned with creepers and looking out on the garden–well—-?’

‘Take my advice,’ he said, ‘and don’t make any plans till you see it. And as for plans, these furnishing fellows do all that–they don’t care to be bothered with plans.’

‘They will have to carry out ours, though. I shall love settling how it is all to be–it will be such fun.’

‘You wouldn’t call it fun if you knew what it was like, I can tell you.’

‘But I do know. Mother and I rearranged most of the rooms at home only last year–so you see I have some experience. And what experience can you have had, if you please?’

Ella had a mental vision as she spoke of the house in Dawson Place when George lived with his mother and sisters–a house in which furniture and everything else were commonplace and bourgeois to the last degree, and where nothing could have been altered since his boyhood; indeed she had often secretly pitied him for having to live in such surroundings, and admired the filial patience that had made him endure them so long.

‘I’ve had my share, Ella, and I should be very sorry for you to have all the worry and bother I’ve been through over it!’

‘But when, George? How? I don’t understand.’

‘Ah, that’s my secret!’ he said provokingly; ‘and you know, Ella, if we began furnishing now, it would take no end of a time, with all these wonderful plans of yours, and–and I couldn’t stand having to wait till next November for you–I couldn’t do it!’

‘Mother thinks the marriage need not be put off now,’ said Ella simply, ‘and we shall have six weeks till then; the house can be quite ready for us by the time we want it.’

‘Six weeks!’ he said impatiently, ‘what’s six weeks? You’ve no idea what these chaps are, Ella! And then there are all your own things to get, and they would take up most of your time. No, we should have had to put it off, whatever you may say. And that would mean another separation–for, of course, you would go away in August, and I should have to stay in town: the office wouldn’t give me my fortnight twice over–honeymoon or no honeymoon!’

Ella looked completely puzzled. ‘But what are you trying to prove now, George?’

‘I was only showing you that, even though you have come back earlier, we couldn’t possibly have got things ready in time, if I hadn’t—-‘ but here he stopped. ‘No, I want that to be a surprise for you, Ella; you’ll see presently,’ he added.