"She's changing the subject," he told himself. "I wonder why?" Aloud he said, "Not a bit. But I can't stride along the way we used in the old days."
Branching off to the right, they came down to a little inn by the water-side. It was shabby with the look of disrepair which all inns had at that time. Its paint was chapped and faded; its windows cracked and held together by pasted strips of paper. The putty had perished in places, so that some of the panes were on the point of falling out. Nevertheless, it had a brave look of carrying on triumphantly, for tulips and crocuses were springing neat as ever from the turf and it was over-hung by a green mist of trees just coming into leafage. They entered and took their seats at a table from which they could watch the pale flowing of the river through the spangled peace of the outside world.
"It was lucky we broke down." Terry sat watching him with her square little face cushioned in her hands. "You see I'm training myself to believe,"
she explained, "that everything happens for the best."
"A comforting philosophy for the lazy," he smiled. "It lets us all out of resisting temptation. Why resist anything, if everything happens for the best? If it were true, it would give us the license to be as flabby as we liked—which rather falls in line with what we were saying about Adair. But who is she—this woman? You say you've seen her."
"You'll know soon enough for your peace of mind—probably you'll see her yourself before the day is out."
"But can't you even tell me her name?"
"Her name's Maisie Lockwood for the present."
"For the present! Why for the present?"
"Because one's never certain about Maisie. She was Maisie Gervis once and Maisie Pollock before that; there must have been a time when she was Maisie Something Else."