“I am going to London this afternoon,” he said, quietly.
“To London?” we both echoed.
“Yes. There is a little business there which requires my personal attention.”
Under the circumstances Alice was even more surprised than I was.
“But how about Mr. Hewitt?” she reminded him blandly. “We were to meet him at the schools at five o’clock this afternoon about the new ventilators.”
“Mr. Hewitt must be put off until my return,” my father answered. “The schools have done without them for ten years so they can go on for another week. Can I trouble you for the Worcestershire sauce, Kate?”
This was my father’s method of closing the subject. Alice looked at me with perplexed face, but my thoughts were elsewhere. I was wondering whether my father would undertake a commission for me at Debenham and Freebody’s.
“Shall you be going West?” I asked him.
He looked up at me and hesitated for a moment.