“Some of us are,” he replied. “And,” he hesitated, “you won’t stop riding here now I’ve come back?”
“Of course not. It’s the habit of a lifetime.”
“I shan’t worry you.”
She laughed frankly. “I’m not afraid of that.”
She was immune, she told herself, she could not be touched, yet she knew she had been touched already: she was obliged to think of him. For the first time in her knowledge of him he had not grumbled, he was like a repentant child, and she realized that he had suffered an experience unknown to her, a sense of sin, and the fact gave him a certain superiority and interest in her eyes.
She went home but not as she had set forth, for she seemed to hear the jingle of her chains.
At luncheon Henrietta appeared in a new hat and an amiable mood. She was going, she said casually, to a concert with Charles Batty.
“I didn’t know there was one,” Rose said. “Where is it?”
“Oh, not in Radstowe. We’re going,” Henrietta said reluctantly, “to Wellsborough.”
But that name seemed to have no association for Aunt Rose. She said, “Oh, yes, they have very good concerts there, and I hope Charles will like your hat.”