He took the key of his chambers from his pocket. 'You go and make tea. I'll be after you directly.'
'Have you thought of anything else?' she cried with a merry smile.
'I want to walk home and think about it,' said Airey. 'I sha'n't be long. Good-bye.' He recollected a trifle. 'Here's some money for the cab.'
'All that?' asked Peggy.
'He's sure we're mad already. Don't let's disturb his convictions,' Airey argued.
She gave no order to the man for a moment; she sat and watched Airey stroll off down Regent Street, his hands in his pockets (he never would carry a stick) and his head bent a little forward, as his custom was. 'What is he thinking?' she asked herself. What would he think when he realised the freak into which she had led him? He might turn very bitter—not with her, but with himself. The enjoyment into which he had been betrayed might now, in a reaction of feeling, seem the merest folly. How should she argue that it had not been? What would any sober judgment on it say? Peggy drove back to Danes Inn in an anxious and depressed state. Yet ever and again the humours of the expedition broke in on her memory, and she smiled again. She chinked the two sovereigns he had given her in her hand. What was the upshot of the day? When she paid the cabman she exchanged smiles with him; that gave her some little comfort.
Danes Inn was comforting too. She hastened to make tea; everything was to be as in old days; to add to the illusion, she herself, having been too excited to eat lunch, was now genuinely hungry. She began to cut bread-and-butter. The loaf was stale! Why, that was like old days too; she used to grumble at that, and Airey always seemed distressed; he used to pledge himself to have new loaves, but they did not always come. Now she saw why. She cut the bread with a liberal and energetic hand; but as she cut—nothing could be more absurd or incongruous—tears came into her eyes. 'He never grudged me enough, anyhow,' she murmured, buttering busily.
Surely, surely, what she had done should turn to good? Must it stand only as a fit of madness, to be looked back on with shame or spoken of with bitter ridicule? It was open enough to all this. Her heart still declared that it was open to something else too. The sun shot a ray in at the big dingy window, and lit up her face and hair. Her task was finished; she threw herself into her usual chair and waited. When he came she would know. He would have thought it over. His step was on the stair; she had left the door unlatched for him; she sat and waited, shutting her eyes before the brightness of that intruding ray.
An apprehension seized her—the fear of a task which she delayed. The step might not be Airey's; it might be Tommy Trent's. She might never be ready with her apology to Tommy, but at any rate she was not ready yet. No, surely it could not be Tommy! Why should he happen to come now? It was much more likely to be Airey.
The expected happened; after all, it sometimes does. Airey it was; the idea that it was Tommy had served only to increase Peggy's sense of the generally critical character of the situation. She had taken such risks with everybody—perhaps she must say such liberties.