'I'm afraid I was a little misleading about the children. They aren't in the garden yet. Shall we go up and see them having tea?'
'Oh, no, it would be bad for their little digestions to hurry them.'
He sat down. Her face gave him as much credit as though he had done some fine self-abnegating deed.
They spoke of that Sunday walk in the valley below the Ulland links, and the crossing of a swollen little stream on a rotting and rickety log.
'I had to go,' she explained apologetically. 'Hermione had gone on and forgotten the puppy hadn't learnt to follow. I was afraid he'd lose himself.'
'It was a dangerous place to go across,' he said, as if to justify some past opinion.
Her eyes were a little mischievous. 'I never thought you'd come.'
'Why?' he demanded.
'Oh, because I thought you'd be too——' His slow look quickened as if to surprise in her some reflection upon his too solid flesh—or might it even be upon the weight of years? But the uncritical admiration in her face must have reassured him before the words, 'I thought you'd be too grand. It was delightful to find you weren't.'