"I know it doesn't, but ten minutes' grace is enough even for a woman, so let's go in and eat." And she led the way into the bleak dining-room, as glad as a school-girl at the chance of being able to get a little bit back, a very little bit, from Ida Larpent.
The waiters were almost ludicrously obsequious and rolled their eyes towards Franklin with the nervousness of pet monkeys.
"How's Mrs. Keene?" Both men asked the question together.
"Up and about," said Beatrix. "A little weak, of course, but otherwise well. Her trouble was wholly mental. Left alone with Pelham on a yacht, she was convinced that, in order to preserve my honor, as she puts it, I should have to jump overboard. Poor, dear, little affectionate Brownie. If only she had taken the trouble to find out the sort of a man Pelham is she wouldn't have turned a hair."
Malcolm laughed. "Is that meant to be complimentary or reproachful?"
She saw that Franklin was watching her keenly. "Both," she said, with a little bow, and sailed on before he could butt in. "I gave her a faithful account of everything that happened and she is beginning to believe, very reluctantly, that her favorite women novelists don't know anything about men. And now what we both want to know is this. Where are we going, how are we going and how soon are we going, or are we all going to spend the remainder of our lives in this rural retreat to make a study of frogs, farmyards and fogginess?"
Franklin was silent for a moment. This was the old Beatrix. This was the Beatrix of New York, the careless, superficial, sarcastic Beatrix of the house party at the Vanderdykes' palace. What a fool he had been to imagine that he was the man appointed to enable Miss Honoria to give thanks to God! "The Galatea will anchor off this place this afternoon," he said. "Malcolm and I will see you and your staff off to New York on the night train."
"And where do you intend to go?"
"To Europe," he said.
"Is that definitely arranged?"