Franklin sprang up and faced her. He was beaten then. He was to fail in breaking in this amazing girl. He was not the man marked out by fate to find the woman in Beatrix, to be the cause of her abdicating a sham throne, to give that good woman Aunt Honoria the longed-for opportunity to offer praise to God. Right. He would take his beating.
He grasped her hand. "You're sure you can be ready to land this afternoon?"
"Quite."
"Very good. I'll make it so. Mrs. Larpent will go with you, of course."
"Just as you like. And Malcolm?"
"Yes. I'll try being alone for a change." He let her hand go and stood back, waiting for whatever she might do or say next.
Beatrix laughed again. She rather liked the queer boyishness of this man, the awkwardness, the inarticulation; and it flashed across her mind as she looked at him, strong and clean-cut and sun-tanned, that there might perhaps have been a different conversation if he had not bent over the end of her bed and rapped out the offensive words that were rooted in her memory.
"Well, then, I'm off to the gym," she said, "for the last time. How happy you'll be to be rid of women."
And out she went, as graceful as a young deer.
XXIV