“I haven’t tried it,” she admitted.
“Your aunt all right to-day?”
“More confessions, Uncle. I haven’t even seen her.”
Endacott, as he took his place, removed his spectacles for a moment, rubbed his eyes wearily, and then looked across at his niece.
“What have you been doing all day then?” he demanded.
Claire summoned up all her courage.
“Mr. Ballaston called for me and I went over to the Cromer Golf Links with him,” she confided. “I had a lesson at golf, some lunch, and afterwards we came home through Blakeney.”
Her uncle, rather to Claire’s surprise, made no comment. The service of dinner appeared to interest him more than usual, and he certainly ate with appetite.
“Railway travelling agrees with me, I think,” he remarked. “I feel that I shall enjoy working this evening. After dinner I shall have a pipe on the lawn with my coffee, and then—the half-hour which I have been looking forward to for so long.”
“Did you get what you wanted from Mr. Phillpots?” she asked him, with a queer little note of eagerness in her tone.