“And now you are here—ah!”
“I didn’t follow her, as you seem to suppose. I wasn’t likely to get another billet in Ottinge, and anyway, I was a bit tired of having Miss Parrett’s heel on my neck.”
“Tired of ‘ordering yourself humbly and lowly to all your betters,’ poor boy! But to return to the young lady; are you still thinking of her?”
Was he not always thinking of her? But he merely nodded.
“You haven’t written?”
“No; I’m not such a sweep as all that!”
“But, Owen, didn’t you wring a sort of half promise from the unfortunate girl? I know it was only ‘perhaps,’ but château qui parle—femme qui écoute.”
“I think it will be all right.”
“And that her ‘perhaps’ is as good as another’s solemn vow! I must say you show extraordinary confidence in yourself and in her, and yet you scarcely know one another.”
“No, not in the usual dancing, dining-out, race-going style; I give in to that, or, indeed, in the ordinary way at all. She only saw me driving or washing the motor, or doing a bit of gardening.”