“How foolish of me,” she said. “I forgot it was dark. But let us go out anyhow, unless you were thinking of going round to the club.”
“Oh, time for that, time for that,” said he. “I expect you will be going to bed early after your long journey. I may step round then, and see what’s going on.”
Without conscious encouragement or welcome on her part, a suspicion darted into her mind. She felt by some process, as inexplicable as that by which certain people are aware of the presence of a cat in the room, that he was going round to see Mrs. Evans.
“I suppose you have often gone round to the club in the evening since I have been away,” she said.
“Yes, I have looked in now and again,” he said. “On other evenings I have dropped in to see our friends. Lonely old bachelor, you know, and Harry was not always very lively company. It’s a good thing that boy has gone back to Cambridge, Amy. He was always mooning round after Mrs. Evans.”
That was a fact: it had often been a slightly inconvenient one. Several times the Major had “dropped in” to see Millie, and found his son already there.
“But I thought you were rather pleased at that, Lyndhurst,” she said. “You told me you considered it not a bad thing: that it would keep Harry out of mischief.”
He finished his coffee rather hastily.
“Yes, within reason, within reason,” he said. “Well, if we are to stroll in the garden, we had better go out. You wanted a shawl, didn’t you? Very wise: where shall I find one?”
That diverted her again to her own personal efforts.