"May we? Would it be polite?"
"Somebody is going to drive my mother home, and she has undertaken to make your apologies to Mrs. Wiggins. I told her I should carry you off. It is all right. We know Mrs. Wiggins well."
He opened the outer door, and Jean questioned no further. One of their old free talks together would be delightful. She never felt so much at her ease with anybody as with Jem, because never so sure of being understood.
Conversation did not at once flow. Jem led away from the house, through the garden, into a lane beyond, which Jean knew to mean a considerable round, before they could get home. She was ready for any amount of exercise—only, would not his mother want him? And what made Jem so grave? Had he something on his mind?
The lane curved hither and thither, in aimless fashion: having on either side a hedge, with trees at intervals. Slanting rays from the sun lighted up the right hand hedge with a dim glory, and fell upon the patches of dull lichen which decorated an aged elm trunk, smitten into ruggedness by prolonged hardships of wind and weather.
"Things are beautiful everywhere," said Jean. "Even in a flat country like this."
"It is not Dulveriford," responded Jem. And as if this supplied the opening for which he had waited, he went on—
"How is your father? And—" in a lower voice, "Mrs. Villiers?"
Jean had much to tell, for she found that he knew little. Home interests never far distant came on her in a rush, as he listened, drawing out further details by a murmured syllable now and then. After long silence on Dulveriford subjects, it was natural to pour out; and she gave abundant particulars of the evening which had left Mrs. Villiers a widow. Only, about the little boudoir scene between husband and wife, a scene of which she had been an unwilling witness, and which had been rendered by after-events doubly sacred, Jean said not a word.
"It was an ordeal for you," Jem remarked.