“And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to spend my last twenty minutes here doing some high-speed cogitating in the back garden. Then I shall be ready to chat with you in the train.”
“Yes, I have a kind of idea that you’ll be quite ready to do that,” said Alec rudely, as they went out into the passage.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Mr. Sheringham Hits the Mark
Roger did not reappear until the car was at the front door and the other members of the party already making their farewells on the steps. His leave-taking was necessarily a little hurried; but perhaps this was not altogether without design. Roger did not feel at all inclined to linger in the society of Lady Jefferson.
He shook hands warmly enough with her husband, however, and the manner of their parting was sufficient to assure the latter, without the necessity of any words being spoken on the subject, that his confidences would be regarded as inviolate. The taciturn Jefferson became almost effusive in return.
Arrived at the station, Roger personally superintended the purchase of the tickets and deftly shepherded Mrs. Plant into a non-smoking carriage explaining that the cigars which he and Alec proposed to smoke would spell disaster to the subtleties of Parfum Jasmine. A short but interesting conversation with the guard, followed by the exchange of certain pieces of silver, ensured the locking of the door of their own first-class smoker.
“And so ends an extremely interesting little visit,” Roger observed as soon as the train started, leaning back luxuriously in his corner and putting his feet on the seat. “Well, I shan’t be sorry to get back to London, on the whole, I must say, though the country is all very well in its way. I always think you ought to take the country in small doses to appreciate it properly, don’t you?”
“No,” said Alec.
“Or look at it in comfort from the windows of a train,” Roger went on, waving an appreciative hand towards the countryside through which they were passing. “Fields, woods, streams, barley——”