“This place suits me,” said Maud. “I shall be sorry to go.”
“Have you settled when you are going?” asked Tom.
“Not precisely; why?”
“Because I shall come with you, if you will allow me: I must be going soon.”
Maud’s face flushed a little, and she turned towards him.
“That will be charming, I shall go in about ten days or a fortnight, as I said last night. You know, now and then, even here with all this winter sun, and the Acropolis there, I want a grey English sky and long green fields.”
“So do I; and cart-horses, and big green trees—even snow and frost, for the sake of the clean frosty smell on cold mornings. Here’s Manvers coming under a large white umbrella. I wonder what he wants to come to the Acropolis for.”
Manvers came up to them, and paused.
“I am taking a little walk,” he explained. “Mrs. Trachington has been paying me a little visit, or rather, I have been paying her a little visit.”
“Who is Mrs. Trachington?” asked Maud.