“That’s just as bad. Must you go?”
“I must. I must. Later—we’ll talk. I’ll try to think. I’ll try to understand. I’ll try to explain everything.”
She had got herself to the door and she had not turned her face to him again. “Don’t despise me,” she said as she left him.
II
THOUGH the traces of her tears were still visible, Antonia met him at lunch with composure. Like all the rooms at Wyndwards, the dining-room was too accurate and intended and, darkly panelled as it was, the low mullioned windows looking out on the high ring-court, it had, through some miscalculation in the lighting, an uncomfortably sombre air. They sat there, the three of them, around the polished table, with its embroidered linens, its crystal and silver, highly civilized and modern in the highly civilized and modern room. He and Antonia, at all events, were that. Miss Latimer, perhaps, belonged to a more primitive tradition. It struck him that he would have liked Wyndwards better if it had kept to that tradition; the tradition, in fact, of making no attempts. As it was, it didn’t match Miss Latimer, nor, though modern and civilized, did it match him and Tony. It was neither sceptical nor sophisticated, nor indifferent.
Antonia leaned her elbow on the table while she ate and looked out at the ring-court. Miss Latimer stooped, but did not lounge. She still wore her hat and ate in a business-like manner, throwing from time to time a bit of bread or biscuit to the dogs. The task of talking to her fell entirely upon him, for Antonia, though composed, was evidently in no mood for talking. He asked her questions about the country and its birds, beasts, and flowers, and she answered, if not affably, yet with an accuracy that betrayed a community of taste.
She told him that they were rather too far north to get stone-curlews, as he had hoped they might. “I found a nest once,” she said: “but that was when I was staying with some people ten miles away.”
“What luck! Did you see the birds?”
“Yes. I hid near by for some hours and saw them going to and fro. I could have photographed them if I had had a camera.”
“What luck!” Captain Saltonhall repeated, with sincerity. “I’ve only once had a glimpse of one, flying. Queer, watchful, uncanny creatures, aren’t they, with great, clear eyes.”