“Do,” she said. “Bill has borrowed a panther from the Mammoth Circus, and they’re having larks with it in the billiard-room.”
Luke shook his head. “I don’t like panthers,” he said wearily. “I don’t like anything much. Mabel looks like a panther sometimes.”
During the twenty minutes’ drive up to Gallows neither of them spoke.
When they reached the gate, Jona said: “Better come up to the house and finish our talk.”
“No,” said Luke; “stay here a little. There’s something I must say to you. I’ve been trying to say it for the last hour. It gets stuck. I shall pull it out somehow.”
Lady Tyburn sent the car away, and they sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree. He sat on one side, and she on the other, back to back. They could not bear to look one another in the face. Presently she said:
“You’re trembling, Lukie. I can feel it. Trembling. Like a jelly.”
“You’re another,” said Luke. “Oh, Jona. There’s something I’ve been trying to ask you for the last ten months, and perhaps there will never be another opportunity. Do you remember when you came to my office?”
She drove her elbow lightly into his ribs. It seemed to him to signify she did remember.
“There were things you said—‘Will you help yourself,’ with your hands out—‘magnet and tin-tack’—‘I made a mistake once.’ You said those things, Jona.”