"If I write at once I shall just catch you before you sail. When you are here, when I see you face to face, and after the period of truce is over, I shall tell you how I felt when that cable arrived yesterday, and I realised that in less than three months we should meet in the flesh. I have felt a new man since that hour, and Dorothea says I look it. She had already written to Bedford (at my instigation) saying that you would probably be coming by the _Bremen_, and giving him elaborate instructions on your behalf. No fear that he won't carry them out! Heavens! the luck some fellows have. What would I give for the opportunity of `looking after you' through those long, lazy days, but I'm not jealous, Katrine--don't imagine that! Whatever you may decide in the future, you'll play fair to me in the present. I asked for my chance, and you've given it by agreeing to come out, so for the time being I hold the field. I trust you utterly, with a glad heart. "This will be the last letter you get from me, unless perhaps a line at Aden, and I can write no more to-day, dear. My heart is too full... CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. The new house had been found; a sunny, airy, sufficiently spacious house, and the bride-elect having graciously expressed her approval, an army of workmen were busy with the decorations. Grizel had come to pay a flying visit to The Glen to superintend their efforts, explaining that though she possessed sufficient strength of character to bear with equanimity such trial as Providence might please to send, to live with a wrong shade of paint passed the limits of her endurance. "If it were even the tiniest degree wrong, I'd nag at Martin till his life was a burden," she announced, smiling the while the slow, imperturbable smile which gave so emphatic a contradiction to her words. "But it wouldn't be my fault!" protested Martin, trying to show sufficient distress at the threat to satisfy Grizel's sense of dignity, but his thanks for the effort were a grimace, and an emphatic: "It will _always_ be your fault!" which silenced him once for all. Grizel indeed was in her most irresponsible mood, scandalising Katrine by refusing to be serious even on that most solemn of subjects, the ordering of Martin's food. "I couldn't possibly think of food beforehand. It's disgusting! If I knew what was coming to table, I couldn't eat a bite! The cook must do it. What are cooks for?" "_Plain_ cooks at under thirty pounds a year don't consider menus within their province. They stare into space, and twirl their fingers while _you_ plan. And even then they need directing." Grizel sighed. "But I don't _like_ plain cooks! I'll have a fancy one. Forty pounds,--fifty--whatever she asks, and a kitchen maid to do the work." "Then," prophesied Katrine gloomily, "Martin will be ruined. She'll fry up all his royalties."