"I do love you, dear," he said tremulously, and ventured to lay his broad palm on hers; "don't you think--we might--" One of the blind impulses came to him which were his making and his ruin. Lady Joan would have loathed him at that moment if he had done anything commonplace, or waited for her to take the initiative. But he put his arm round her waist so softly that she scarcely felt it. "May I kiss you?" he whispered. CHAPTER VIII. Two years later, the musician and his wife went down to Relton for their Easter holiday. They stayed at the "Relton Arms," although they had a warm invitation to the Court instead; but Digby was unusually firm in his determination not to be the guest of Lady Joan, and Norah's objections that there was no nursery for the baby, and that people would "wonder," were for once overruled. She satisfied her sense of the fitness of things by telling Mrs. Reginald Routh and her set that there were early romantic associations in connection with the little old country inn which induced her and her husband to go there again; and to people who spent their lives in straining after unconventional effects with a conventional reason for them in the background in case it was wanted, the explanation was quite sufficient. But the fact remained that the "Relton Arms" offered insufficient accommodation for a baby and a growing boy and a nurse, and there were jars in that holiday in consequence. "This is what I like," exclaimed the musician, enthusiastically, at breakfast, the morning after their arrival: "fresh eggs and milk straight from the cow--the--the animal I mean, none of your cooked-up stuff such as we've been eating in Victoria Street. I can't think why you don't have it straight up from here, Norah, instead of--" "Because you said the eggs at the Stores were just as good, dear, and they are cheaper; don't you remember?" said his wife, gently. Digby wished, not for the first time, that her memory were less reliable. "Well, at any rate, the milk is a different thing; just look at the cream on it. Baby ought to thrive on stuff like that, oughtn't she?" "That is just what I am anxious about; It has only upset her so far. Hark! is that baby crying? Precious thing! Do you mind managing Sonny's egg and pouring out the coffee, Digby, while I run upstairs?" "I am inclined to agree with Plato," began the musician, earnestly; but his wife was gone, and Sonny was clamoring for food. He took up an egg, and then almost dropped it again as the wooden door was pushed open from without, with the same creak as of yore.