“Look here. I must speak to you.”
This was my employer, hurriedly to me after breakfast, in the veranda. Now, as that deep, shady veranda is built all the way round the house, as every one of the windows gives on to it, and as all the windows are always wide open, I couldn’t help giving a look round it as much as to say, “Here?”
“Not here,” he muttered, still more hurriedly. “This seems to be the deuce of a house to talk in—never saw such a place. And there’s no time now. My uncle was going to take us along in the car——”
“Must we go?” I asked, softly and ruefully, with my back to one of the pillars.
“No. I’ve knocked that on the head—I’m going to take him off by myself to play golf. I said you’d really rather go to church with my mother and the girls.”
“Oh, thanks so much,” I said fervently. “I certainly would!”
“So I thought. Well, then, we shall be lunching at the Club House—or, anyhow, getting lunch somewhere out—not coming back here.”
I nearly said, “Thanks, so much!” once more.
I also nearly smiled to think that anyone else, catching sight of the two of us talking so quickly, so quietly, and so close together under the soft mauve fringe of wistaria-blossom that drooped from the glazed roof, might easily have imagined that our conspiracy was how to spend most of this glorious Sunday together, instead of apart!