"But it's such a way off," objected Miss Baker. "We'd better have tea first. The light will be better afterwards, too."
Miss Abigail settled the question for the moment. She emerged from the living tent, a stout, ungainly body, grey-haired, middle-aged, browned by exposure and innumerable hot weathers. But there was character in the blunt, homely features, courage in the small light eyes; a woman to be trusted and esteemed in spite of her unfortunate appearance. Philip liked her instinctively. She reminded him of a cottage loaf, rather overbaked, all knobs and crusty protuberances, spreading and wholesome.
Miss Baker introduced them with a proprietary air that included them both, and they entered the tent where tea was laid carelessly on an unsteady camp table. The spout of the teapot was broken, the plates were all chips and cracks, there was a pat of Danish butter, goat's milk, some slabs of thick toast, and a tin of jam roughly opened with some blunt implement.
He glanced at Miss Baker, saw her nose wrinkle ever so slightly, as though in suppressed distaste. Was she contrasting the spectacle with afternoon tea in "the sort of palace" in London, and "the place in the country"?
Nevertheless, it was a cheerful little meal. They laughed and talked. Flint described to Miss Abigail the scene he had witnessed the previous evening when the "famine wallahs" had refused to be photographed. He explained the reason to Miss Baker, who said it was, of course, the fault of the Government that such silly ideas should still be general. The people should have been educated out of them by this time.
"What about the freedom of the individual?" he inquired. "Why should they be photographed if they dislike it, for whatever reason?"
"That's a smack at me, I suppose," said Miss Baker huffily.
"Not a very hard smack, any way." He looked at her with a friendly smile, and, mollified, she smiled back at him. It turned out that Miss Abigail knew the Beards at Rassih, though she had seen nothing of them for years. She asked many questions about them and their work, few of which Flint was able to answer, indeed he could hardly remember what the Beards were like. They talked "shop," discussed the works, and the shelters, and the hospital, agreed how lucky it was that the well in the village was holding out satisfactorily so far; Miss Abigail was certain she had seen a small cloud in the distance that morning, and was confident that if they all prayed hard enough rain would fall within a reasonable time. Flint said politely that he hoped so indeed; Miss Baker tried not to look scornful.
Between them they emptied the teapot and finished the toast; and Miss Baker observed that if Mr. Flint insisted on being photographed under the peepul tree they had better be up and doing. Miss Abigail was persuaded to accompany them, though she openly grudged the time, and they plodded through the dust of the rough road that led past the camp, and the great tree, on to the village beyond.