"How soon do you mean to have this table cleared?" asked Hilda.
The Christmas dinner, served by a raw girl in a large bluish-white pinafore, temporarily hired to assist Mrs. Dummer the housekeeper, had been a good one. Its only real fault was that it had had a little too much the air of being a special and mighty effort; and although it owed something to Hilda's parcels, Ingpen was justified in the self-satisfaction which he did not quite conceal as a bachelor host. But now, under Hilda's quizzing gaze, not merely the table but the room and the house sank to the tenth-rate. The coarse imperfections of the linen and the cutlery grew very apparent; the disorder of bottles and glasses and cups recalled the refectory of an inferior club. And the untidiness of the room, heaped with accumulations of newspapers, magazines, documents, books, boxes and musical-instrument cases, loudly accused the solitary despot whose daily caprices of arrangement were perpetuated and rendered sacred by the ukase that nothing was to be disturbed. Hilda's glinting eyes seemed to challenge each corner and dark place to confess its shameful dirt, and the malicious poise of her head mysteriously communicated the fact that in the past fortnight she had spied out every sinister secret in the whole graceless, primitive wigwam.
"This table," retorted Ingpen bravely, "is going to be cleared when it won't disturb me to have it cleared."
"All right," said Hilda. "But Mrs. Dummer does want to get on with her washing-up."
"Look here, madam," Ingpen replied. "You're a little ray of sunshine, and all that, and I'm the first to say so; but I'm not your husband." He made a warning gesture. "Now don't say you'd be sorry for any woman I was the husband of. Think of something more original." He burst out laughing.
Hilda went to the window and looked out at the fading day.
"Please, I only popped in to say it's nearly a quarter to three, and George and I will go down to the inn and bring the dog-cart up here. I want a little walk. We shan't get home till dark as it is."
"Oh! Chance it and stop for tea, and all will be forgiven."
"Drive home in the dark? Not much!" Edwin murmured.
"He's afraid of my driving," said Hilda.