When Anstice returned, she found them on a very friendly footing. She had sent a farm boy off post-haste for a car, and it actually arrived at the same time that the chauffeur appeared with a blacksmith. The lady did not wait till her car was repaired. She took the hired car, and did not pursue her journey.
"I shall be glad to get home," she said. Then she turned to Anstice very graciously: "I am glad to have met you, and as for this small Rufus, I should like to run off with him, for he's the best company I have had for many a long day."
"Where do you live?" Ruffie asked her.
"A long way off from you," she said, "and I don't think we shall meet again. It is not very probable."
"But wouldn't you like to see Dad now he's grown-up?" Ruffie asked.
She shook her head. "Not at all, thank you. Good-bye. Perhaps one day I may send over for you to come and cheer up a very lonely old lady, but it's only a possibility, not a probability."
She turned to give directions to her chauffeur, and then, as Anstice was busy putting the little fellow into his basket chair, she came over and stood beside him.
"Will you give me a kiss?" she asked suddenly.
Ruffie coloured. He was not particularly fond of kissing strangers; then he put his little arms round her neck and pressed his soft, rosy mouth against her cheek.
"I like you," he said. "I like your eyes, they make me think of Dad's. You move them about like he does."