"I have been thinking that I should like to go away for a time, sir," Corrie answered, gravely self-contained.
"Very good. To speak out, it will be better for our future living together if you're not in my sight for a while now. If we stay housemates, there is likely to be another kind of a crash, and two crashes don't mend a break. You'll have all the money you want and I don't care where you go or how much you spend. Just put in a year as well as you can, until we all settle down and go on again. We have got a lifetime before us to get through."
After a moment Corrie quietly took the reins from Flavia; blinded by tears, she was letting the ponies stray at will.
The brief November day was ending; it was dusk when they reached the house, and perhaps none of the three were ungrateful for the shadows which veiled them from one another. On the veranda, Corrie detained his sister, allowing Mr. Rose to enter alone.
"I'm not coming in just yet, Other Fellow," he said. "Ask father to excuse me from dinner; I have an errand that cannot wait. I don't want you to worry about me or to be unhappy. I did a lot of thinking yesterday, out in the speed-boat by myself; I know what I am going to do and that I will put up the best fight I can. Go help father; don't fret over me."
He kissed her soft mouth with the man's firmness so different from his former casual caresses, and went down the broad steps, walking across the lawns in the direction from which they had just come.
IX
THE HOUSE AT THE TURN
Dinner at the Rose house took place about two hours after the corresponding meal occurred at the farmhouse near the Westbury Turn. So while Corrie was walking through his five miles of desolate, dark road, the evening became well under way in the country parlor; sick-room no longer.