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Crippenham was where his father was. What so safe as a refuge for Sally as his father? He was ninety-three, and he was deaf. A venerable age; a convenient failing. Convenient indeed in this case, for the Duke, like Charles, took little pleasure in the speech of the lower classes. Also he was alone there till Laura should come back to him on the following day, because nobody was ever invited to Crippenham, which was his yearly rest-cure, and nobody ever dared even try to disturb its guarded repose.
Charles felt that it was, besides being the only, the very place. Here Sally could be kept remote and hidden till Laura—not he; he wouldn’t be able to do such a thing—restored her to where she belonged; here she would be safe from the advances of Streatley, who couldn’t follow her anywhere his father was, because the old man had an aversion to the four surviving fruits of his first marriage, and freely showed it; and here he would have her to himself for a whole evening, and part at least of the next day.
Also, it would serve Laura right. She would get a fright, and think all sorts of things had happened when they didn’t come back. Well, thought Charles, she deserved everything she got. Under the cloak of protecting and comforting Sally she had been completely selfish and cruel. Charles was himself astonished at the violence of his feelings towards Laura, with whom he had always been such friends. He didn’t investigate these feelings, however; he didn’t investigate any of his other feelings either, not excepting the one he had when he asked Sally, soon after they had turned the corner out of the square, if she were warm enough, and she looked up shyly at him, and smiled as she politely thanked him, for his feelings since the evening before no longer bore investigation. They were a mixed lot, a strong lot. And it vexed Charles to know that even as early in the day as this, and not much after half past nine in the morning, he wished to kiss Sally.
This wasn’t at all the proper spirit of rescue. He drove in silence. He couldn’t remember having wished to kiss a woman before at half past nine in the morning, and it annoyed him.
Sally, of course, was silent too. Not for her to speak without being spoken to, and she sat mildly wondering that she should be going along in a car at all. Laura had come up to her bedroom and said her brother was there, wanting to take her out for a little fresh air. Do her good, Laura had said, though Sally had never known good come of fresh air yet; but, passive as a parcel, she had let herself be taken. Why, however, she should be going for a joy-ride with this lord she didn’t know, though she supposed it was as good a way as another of getting through the intimidating day among the picks of the basket, and anyhow this way there was only one of them, and anyhow he wasn’t the big old one with the hairs on his hands.
Queer lot, these picks, thought Sally. Didn’t seem to have anything to do to keep them at home; seemed to spend their time going somewhere else. Fidgety. And a vision of her own life as it was going to be once she was settled in those rooms at Cambridge, getting ready for her little baby, and cleaning up, and making things cosy for her man, flooded her heart with a delicious warmth. Laura had promised to help her find the rooms, and take her to where Mr. Luke would be. Mr. Luke wouldn’t be angry any more now, thought Sally—he’d be too pleased about the little baby; and Laura seemed to know exactly where they would find him, and had assured her he wouldn’t want to have Mrs. Luke living with them. Laura was queer too, in Sally’s eyes, but good. Indeed Sally, feeling very much the married woman after what had happened the evening before, feeling motherly already, feeling exalted by the coming of her baby to a height immensely above mere spinsterhood, went so far as to say to herself of Laura, with indulgent affection, ‘Nice kid.’