“Madame,” he answered, looking back from the door.
“Come and see me to-morrow about the same time, unless you are engaged. If so, find out from Miss Besant what time will suit me. That is all. Good afternoon.”
Mr. Johnson followed his companion across the hall and out into the street. He was feeling a little dazed.
“Madame,” he remarked, “has a great deal of character, and also vivacity, for an invalid.”
The girl remained silent. She climbed into the car with a little murmur of pleasure.
“Madame,” she declared, settling herself down contentedly, “is very much stronger than she used to be. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if she recovered altogether, and then she won’t need a companion any longer.”
Mr. Johnson swung round the corner with the skill of a practised driver.
“In that case,” he observed, “my sympathies are divided.”
CHAPTER VI
Mr. Johnson found plenty of time during the journey to Norwich to exchange remarks with and take notice of his companion. The sulkiness of her expression lightened considerably with the pleasure of the rapid motion, the sense of freedom springing from this unexpected holiday. The road wound its way between hedges from which the late honeysuckle still drooped, through a tract of pleasant and varied country; corn fields where harvesting machines with their musical mechanism were at work, rich meadows where the cows stood knee-deep in flower-starred herbage, across a great common where clumps of heather and gorse stretched away to the borders of a thick, encircling wood. The Ballaston pheasants strutted about on every side. From a slight rise in the road a mile or so beyond the village they caught a glimpse of the back of the Hall.