"Right you are, my boy."
Their friendship seemed once more to be suddenly and surprisingly intensified.
When Edwin returned, Janet had vanished again. Like an animal which fears the hunt and whose shyness nothing can cure, she had fled to cover at the first chance. According to Hilda she had run home because it had occurred to her that she must go through her mother's wardrobe and chest of drawers without a moment's delay.
Edwin's account to his wife of the interview with Johnnie Orgreave was given on a note justifiably triumphant. In brief he had "talked sense" to Johnnie, and Johnnie had been convicted and convinced. Hilda listened with respectful propriety. Edwin said nothing as to his encounter with Tertius Ingpen, partly from prudence and partly from timidity. When Ingpen arrived at the house, much earlier than he might have been expected to arrive, Edwin was upstairs, and on descending he found his wife and his friend chatting in low and intimate voices close together in the drawing-room. The gas had been lighted.
"Here's Mr. Ingpen," said Hilda, announcing a surprise.
"How do, Ingpen?"
"How do, Ed?"
Ingpen did not rise. Nor did they shake hands, but in the Five Towns friends who have reached a certain degree of intimacy proudly omit the ceremony of handshaking when they meet. It was therefore impossible for Hilda to divine that Edwin and Tertius had previously met that day, and apparently Ingpen had not divulged the fact. Edwin felt like a plotter.
The conversation of course never went far away from the subject of the Orgreaves--and Janet in particular. Ingpen's indignation at the negligence which had left Janet in the lurch was more than warm enough to satisfy Hilda, whose grievance against the wicked carelessness of heads of families in general seemed to be approaching expression again. At length she said:
"It's enough to make every woman think seriously of where she'd be--if anything happened."