"Because I meant nothing of the kind. We are going to walk over to Chipping Norbury, if you will come with us."
"I can't. I have promised to call on Mrs. Faulkner, who won't see me."
"Mrs. Faulkner has been rude to mother, and has behaved very foolishly," Nina said, in a way which she considered impressive and I thought humorous.
So The Bradder and Nina went to Chipping Norbury without me, and he stayed for three more days, by which time even my father did not want him to go, though he talked to my mother about him as one of those misguided young men who want England to stand on its head just to see what it would look like.
I found out afterwards that The Bradder described my father to some one as a mixture of cayenne pepper and kindness, and, since there was no harm in it, I passed it on.
"I won't have people making up these things about me," he said, but he chuckled, and I am sure he liked the cayenne pepper part of the mixture.
CHAPTER XX
THE HEDONISTS
Fred Foster's people came back from India during the summer, and he spent all the vac with them, though I tried to make him come to us for the shooting. He had, however, got an idea that Nina did not want him, and nothing I could do was successful in removing it. I told him that Nina had been greatly improved by Paris; I did not like the expression, but I did not see why he should think it ridiculous. Still, if he meant to be obstinate it was no use wasting time in writing letters at which he gibed, so I left him alone.