"What engagement? There's nothing on to-night, I'm sure."
He didn't know what to say, so he nodded in the direction of the club. For all the engagement he had was to go and walk up and down the St. Kilda pier.
CHAPTER IX
THE POTENTIAL HUSBAND
Sarah found herself obliged to go home when the tea-room closed. It was absolutely necessary, she said, to wash her hair. She would not be longer than she could help, and if Jenny liked to go to the pier by herself—for she should not lose the refreshment of the sea air, so fagged as she looked—her mother and sister could join her there when the hair was dried sufficiently.
Jenny did not feel called upon to forego the recreation of which she was so much in need, and had long been accustomed to go about at all hours by herself, safe and fearless, though Sarah was not allowed to do so. So the proposition was agreed to; in fact, it was jumped at.
"And if you find it late before you are ready, dears," said Jenny, fixing her hat by the tea-room pier-glass, "don't mind about fetching me. I can bring myself back quite well. It isn't worth while to waste a shilling on mere going and coming."
"All right," said Sarah; and mentally added, "I ought to be ashamed of myself, I know—but I don't care!"
She set out briskly to walk home with her mother, glad of the exercise after sitting for so many hours; and her sister spent an extra penny to ride from Spencer Street to the bridge because of her over-tired legs. It was their habit to take the tram to St. Kilda in preference to the train, in order to be freely blown by such air as there was on the journey to and fro; and she seated herself on the fore end of the dummy on this occasion, quite unaware of the fact that a man in the following vehicle was in chase of her. She anticipated a long evening of lonely meditation, which was the thing above all others that she desired just now—two whole hours in which she might hug the image of Mr. Anthony Churchill in peace.