“My dearest,” he said fervently, “I will always help you in whatever you want—all my strength is yours.” Elise gave a soft sigh of relief. All John’s strength would do beautifully. Very slowly she lifted her blue eyes again, and John knew that he had received his signal. He kneeled down beside her and kissed her. There seemed to both of them to be nothing in the world so simple or so straightforward as their love. CHAPTER IV John called twice upon Hermione in London. On each occasion he was told that the Princess was extremely sorry but she was too ill to receive visitors. However, Elise assured him that Hermione had been “perfectly lovely” about their marriage. Everything was “perfectly lovely.” Mr. Brett cracked jokes all day long; John had never looked so radiant; the neighbourhood rejoiced openly that it was to keep Elise, suitably attached to an Englishman who understood and respected the game laws; the servants showed a well bred toleration for John. John’s relations (he turned out to have very few and they all lived in Yorkshire) wrote charming letters; but in spite of all these advantages there was a slight hitch somewhere. It took John some time to discover, in all the flutter of delight around him, where the hitch was. Mr. Brett was unchanged. He moved as usual very slowly and carefully about the house and garden, reposed in long chairs, took the points in or out of schemes, and smiled more benevolently than usual at his secretary. Elise continued to declare with obvious evasiveness that she was “too happy for words,” but John, who had a persistent nature and was clear sighted where he loved, asked why, if she was too happy for words, her eyelids should be red? Elise confessed at last, with tears, that there was just one thing she wanted most dreadfully and couldn’t get. Hermione wished to spend the last few weeks before their marriage at Mambles, and Papa wouldn’t allow it. He was quite adamant, he had said: “After you’re married this house is yours, you can have whom you like to it—including me—but until I hand you over to John, Hermione stays away. If she’s tired of London she can hire in the country. England ain’t full.” If Elise wanted, she could go to London and see Hermione; but that, Elise explained to John, wasn’t what Hermione meant. Hermione was too sick to enjoy London. She had a feeling that if she could lie on a long chair in the garden and just watch Elise’s happiness, it would make up for the loss of her own. Hermione had been perfectly lovely about it. Couldn’t John make Papa change his mind? It was awkward for John to try, for on that very morning Mr. Brett had presented him with Mambles.