"Not quite." I have said before, and I say again, that girls of this type ought not to be allowed to raise their eyebrows and smile faintly at the same moment. It amounts to a technical assault. I fancy she saw me set my teeth, for the next moment she put up her left hand and bent the broad blue rim over her face.
"Early closing day," she said. I contemplated her ankles in silence. After a minute:
"Well?" said my companion from behind the brim.
"I hate it when the blinds are down," said I, "but—"
"But what?"
"Happily, they are only short blinds. In other words, just as the ostrich, when pursued, is said to thrust its head into the sand, believing—"
"And now please can I be shown over the house?"
I glanced at the order-to-view which she had handed me. It referred to The Grange, which stood in its own grounds about half a mile away. Its lodge gates were rather like ours. The same mistake had been made before.
"The agent at Bettshanger gave me that to-day, and I motored over this afternoon. The car's outside. I was walking up the drive—how pretty it all is!—when I saw you asleep here. I suppose I ought to have gone up to the house really, but it looked so nice and cool here that I came and sat down instead and waited for you to wake."
"I'm so glad you did."