"One—thousand—pounds. No less! I can't really quite make out how I came to do it."
"I'm sure I can't help you there, Arthur. I wasn't in your confidence."
"Never mind! In for it now! I shall get hold of Joe for lunch on my way through town, and hear all about it."
"You might look in at the Temple too, and see how many briefs you've missed!"
"Well, it's vacation, you know—Still I mean to settle down to that when I get back from Malvern."
"Yes, you must. We mustn't keep you any longer. You've been very good to stay—and it's been very good to have you here, Arthur."
"By Jove, when I think of what I expected my visit here to be, and what it has been!"
She shook her head at him with a smile. "Then don't think of it," she counselled. "Think of Did You Say Mrs.? instead!"
The parting from Hilsey could not be achieved without some retrospects, some drawing of contrasts, without memories bitter or seductive; that would have demanded a mind too stoical. Yet his leave-taking was graced and softened by their reluctance to let him go. He went not as a guest whose sojourn under a strange roof is finished and who may chance not to pass that way again; his going was rather as that of a son of the house who sallies forth on his business or his ventures and, God willing, shall come again, bringing his sheaves with him, to a home ever and gladly open. So they all, in their ways, tried to tell him or to show him. For their sakes, no less than for the dear sake of her who was gone, his heart was full.
Joe Halliday bustled in to lunch at the appointed meeting-place as busy and sanguine as ever—so busy indeed that he appeared not to have been able to see much of Did You Say Mrs.? lately. "But it's going on all right," he added reassuringly. "We had a job over that third act, but it's topping now. Claud had an idea that Langley liked at last, thank heaven! It's a job to keep those two chaps from cutting one another's throats—that's the only trouble. I expect they'll be rehearsing this afternoon. Would you like to drop in for a bit?"