“Yes, that he is,” replied the small woman volubly. “First time he’s slep’ away from me for nigh on fifteen years, but business is business, he said, and—— But what am I doing, keeping you on the doorstep? Come in, sir, you and your lady. And a blessing it is to see you, I will say. I like a man in the house at nights, I do. You’ll be wanting a bedroom, of course. Well, there’s one all ready. Clean sheets and pillow-cases on this morning, I put, just in case. One never knows, does one? And some food, you said? Well, there’s only——”
“We shan’t want—er—a bedroom,” Mr. Priestley interrupted again, “We shall be going on again. We just want some food—anything, it doesn’t matter what—in a private sitting-room, and—er—a file. Our car has something wrong with it,” explained Mr. Priestley earnestly, “and we’ve run out of—I mean, we want a file. Have you got a file?”
“Well, yes, sir, I think so,” said the little landlady rather doubtfully. “If you and your lady will just come inside, I’ll run and look in the box my husband keeps his tools in. And a sitting-room? Well, there is a sitting-room, of course, but seeing what a cold night it is wouldn’t you rather have something by the kitchen fire? Not if you wouldn’t like it, of course, and there’s plenty that wouldn’t; but just step in, sir, and——”
“No,” said Mr. Priestley firmly. “We won’t come in yet. We’re very anxious to get our car repaired first. If you’ll get us the file at once, we can be getting on with it while you’re laying our supper. Don’t you think so—er—my dear?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Priestley’s newly adopted dear. “And we’ll have our supper in the kitchen, I think, darling,” she added with a large shiver. She had not spoken before, because she was curious to see how Mr. Priestley would handle things, but she was not going to leave that fire to chance.
Mr. Priestley blushed pleasantly at this wifely endearment and coughed.
“Very well,” the landlady acquiesced. “I’ll get you the file at once then and your supper will be ready in ten minutes. But wouldn’t the lady like to come in and get warm while you’re doing the motor, sir?”
“Oh, no, thank you,” Laura explained gravely. “My husband always likes me to hold the car for him while he’s doing anything to it.”
The landlady looked upon this charming couple, holding hands affectionately on her very doorstep, and her heart warmed towards them. Obviously they were very much in love, and probably quite recently married. The glamour of their romance threw itself round her own thin shoulders.
“Very well,” she said again, this time with a particular smile for Laura’s benefit—the smile which an elder married woman bestows upon a newly married one who, though a stranger, is yet one with her in the freemasonry of the married woman. It means: “So now you can see through the funny old things too!” And still smiling, the little landlady scurried off in search of a file.