He had spoken to her quite early upon the subject, seeing where she was drifting, but he had not succeeded in changing her mind.
“What’s to do you won’t take tea with Mrs. Grisedale?” he had enquired one afternoon, as he came in. “I met her just now when I was down at station after some weed-killer as hasn’t turned up, and she was right grieved about it. They’re having a few friends in, she says, for that christening-party of theirs, and she’s keen for you to be there.”
“I just didn’t fancy it, that’s all,” Mattie had said, although taking care not to meet his eye. “It’s a bit of a trial, I always think, talking to folks as you don’t know.”
“Well, that’s easy mended, isn’t it, and the sooner you start in at it the better? Mrs. Grisedale, for one, ’ll not take you long. She seems a decent little soul.”
“Oh, ay, she’ll do.”
“There’s Mrs. Ellwood an’ all,—she’s asked you time and again. She told me she’d never taken to anybody as she’s taken to you.”
“And she’ll do, too.”
“Well, then, what’s to do you can’t make friends with the pair of them?” Kirkby had blundered on. “You couldn’t have a nicer couple of folks than them two, and you’ll be wanting somebody.”
But he had had to probe for some time before she would give him the explanation.
“It’s like this,” she had said at last, half-ashamed, as he could see, and yet determined upon her line of action. “It just isn’t worth while. Making friends takes a deal of time and a deal of patience, and once you’ve got ’em made, it takes a deal of getting over if you’ve got to leave them. Well, it isn’t worth it. I’m set on getting away from this spot, as you don’t need telling, and if I take up with any of the folk, it’ll all be wasted.”