Gheena, her colour still high, returned, Crabbit at her heels.
"I've sent the car to ask Mrs. Weston to tea," she said. "Dillon can drive, and it will mean Mr. Keefe also, no doubt."
"And Stafford," said Darby. "He's the latest."
Gheena sniffed haughtily.
"Why he stays on here," she burst out—"as if drains mattered. A nice thing if the Germans found them ready just to make their potato grounds good for them."
Darby held his hands to the blaze, as he said quietly that all men knew their own affairs best.
"The man may have something wrong with him," he said. "Heart disease or heaven knows what!"
"A man who rides and shoots," said Gheena contemptuously. "I have my eye——" Then she stopped abruptly.
Dearest George, feeling himself neglected, remarked that he would not have the car sent on futile errands. It was a dear car, and just because it was a wet day, and to send it with a man who might be able to drive, or might be in the bay by noon under water, car and all. He appealed to his wife, who came in unperturbed by bad weather, her curiously fresh comeliness outlined in girlish blue.
"Of course, Dearest George, it will get wet as it is wet," said Matilda Freyne sympathetically, "the tyres especially; but it is so very wet that it won't be bad, and as old Dillon is there, it may amuse him to wash it, and Gheena said she wanted company."