"So you are going up this evening?" she said at last.
"This afternoon, if you don't mind," he replied, glancing at the clock, and thinking of the bliss with which he would turn his car out into the road. "I explained, didn't I, that I had an engagement this evening?"
"Quite right," she admitted. "All the same, you are rather an inconsiderate guest, aren't you, to leave me here alone in this swamp?"
"Come, too?" he suggested. "I'll motor you up."
"Thanks," she replied, "I will."
He was a little taken aback, but, after all, it was perhaps the simplest way out of his difficulties.
"I'll take you, with pleasure, if you don't mind being drenched."
"I can stand physical discomforts," she said. "It's the other sort of knocks that bruise."
"It won't be so bad," he continued, ignoring her last speech, "if you wear a mackintosh and something thick for your head. Shouldn't wonder if it cleared up presently."
Lady Hilda smiled.