‘Put out some of the lights and let the night into the room,’ said Julia.
She quoted from The Merchant of Venice. ‘“In such a night as this, when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees…”’ Charles switched off everything but one shaded lamp, and when he sat down again she nestled up to him.
He put his arm rould her waist and she rested her head on his shoulder.
‘This is heaven,’ she murmured.
‘I’ve missed you terribly all these months.’
‘Did you get into mischief?’
‘Well, I bought an Ingres drawing and paid a lot of money for it.
I must show it you before you go.’
‘Don’t forget.
Where have you put it?’
She had wondered from the moment she got into the house whether the seduction would take place in the study or upstairs.
‘In my bedroom,’ he answered.
‘That’s much more comfortable really,’ she reflected.
She laughed in her sleeve as she thought of poor old Charles devising a simple little trick like that to get her into his bedroom.
What mugs men were!
Shy, that was what was the matter with them.
A sudden pang shot through her heart as she thought of Tom.
Damn Tom.
Charles really was very sweet and she was determined to reward him at last for his long devotion.
‘You’ve been a wonderful friend to me, Charles,’ she said in her low, rather husky voice.
She turned a little so that her face was very near his, her lips, again like Lady Hamilton’s, slightly open.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t always been very kind to you.’
She looked so deliciously yielding, a ripe peach waiting to be picked, that it seemed inevitable that he should kiss her.
Then she would twine her soft white arms round his neck.
But he only smiled.
‘You mustn’t say that.
You’ve been always divine.’ (‘He’s afraid, poor lamb.’)
‘I don’t think anyone has ever been so much in love with me as you were.’
He gave her a little squeeze.
‘I am still.
You know that.
There’s never been any woman but you in my life.’
Since, however, he did not take the proffered lips she slightly turned.
She looked reflectively at the electric fire.
Pity it was unlit.
The scene wanted a fire.
‘How different everything would have been if we’d bolted that time.
Heigh-ho.’
She never quite knew what heigh-ho meant, but they used it a lot on the stage, and said with a sigh it always sounded very sad.
‘England would have lost its greatest actress.
I know now how dreadfully selfish it was of me ever to propose it.’
‘Success isn’t everything.
I sometimes wonder whether to gratify my silly little ambition I didn’t miss the greatest thing in the world.
After all, love is the only thing that matters.’
And now she looked at him again with eyes more beautiful than ever in their melting tenderness.
‘D’you know, I think that now, if I had my time over again, I’d say take me.’
She slid her hand down to take his.
He gave it a graceful pressure.
‘Oh, my dear.’
‘I’ve so often thought of that dream villa of ours.