“But the idea is preposterous,” I added hastily. “One of your sisters now?”
“That’s really not a bad idea,” she conceded graciously.
In fact, she had suddenly grown altogether very gracious—and I do not refer merely to the marked civility of her manner towards myself. The frown had vanished, the wrinkle was not: the hands were clasped in a comfortable repose. She looked across to me with a ridiculously contented smile.
“It’s such a good thing to have a talk with a really sensible man,” she said.
I took off my hat—but I also rose to my feet. To present me as a future bishop was asking too much of the whirligig of time. Not a kaleidoscope could do it! Besides, I wasn’t serious about it; it was just the meadow, the river—and the rest. In order to prove this to myself beyond dispute, I said that I had to go to the post office and despatch an important letter.
“To the post office?” said Prudence, displaying some confusion at the mention of that institution. “Oh, then, would you mind—it would be so kind—would you really mind——?”
“Calling in at the parlour window and telling Mr Davenport that you’re going to have some tennis after tea? With pleasure, of course.”
“I didn’t know you knew he lodged there!” she cried.
“Pending promotion to the Palace, yes.”
I made that last remark after I had turned my back, and I didn’t look round to see whether Miss Prudence had heard it; it was, in fact, in the nature of an “aside”—a thing which may be heard or not at pleasure.