“Don’t you ever say ‘it’s too late’ again, Missy!” were his parting words, as he kissed Gerda, a few days later, across their iron gate.
It was Thursday now, only two days before the King’s Barton wedding, and events had moved rapidly since that agitating Sunday. He had cajoled his Pond Cottage friends into allowing Olwen to pay a surreptitious visit to what after all was her paternal home; and the child had fallen in love with Christie to such an extent that the visit had been repeated within forty-eight hours. And this very day Darnley was driving her in, as he came to School, with the idea that she should stay a couple of days under the Malakite roof.
“No one will interfere; it’s all blown over,” Wolf had said. “It would have to be some enemy if any fuss were made. But there won’t be any fuss. A little gossip, when Christie goes out with her in the street … nothing more … and perhaps not even that!”