"You're quite right as to the vile hole," said Hilda with conviction.
"I don't know----" Edwin muttered. "I think old Bosley isn't so bad."
"Yes. But you're an old stick-in-the-mud, dearest," said Hilda. "Mr. Ingpen has lived away from the district, and so have I. You haven't. You're no judge. We know, don't we, Mr. Ingpen?"
When, Ingpen having at last accumulated sufficient resolution to move and get his cap, they went through the drawing-room to the garden, they found that rain was falling.
"Never mind!" said Ingpen, lifting his head sardonically in a mute indictment of the heavens. "I have my mack."
Edwin searched out the bicycle and brought it to the window, and Hilda stuck a hat on his head. Leisurely Ingpen clipped his trousers at the ankle, and unstrapped a mackintosh cape from the machine, and folded the strap. Leisurely he put on the cape, and gazed at the impenetrable heavens again.
"I can make you up a bed, Mr. Ingpen."
"No, thanks. Oh, no, thanks! The fact is, I rather like rain."
Leisurely he took a box of fusees from his pocket, and lighted his lamp, examining it as though it contained some hidden and perilous defect. Then he pressed the tyres.
"The back tyre'll do with a little more air," he said thoughtfully. "I don't know if my pump will work."