And Mrs. Cumfrit said—rather helplessly, Mrs. Colquhoun thought, as if she were seriously lacking in backbone, ‘Very well.’
It was all extremely odd.
‘Virginia will wonder,’ remarked Mrs. Colquhoun, looking on with a distinctly pursed expression while her colleague was being rolled into the rug as carefully as if she were china,—rolled right up to her chin in it, as if she were going thousands of miles, and at least to Lapland. ‘But no doubt you have told her Mr. Monckton was coming down.’
‘I shall only drive part of the way,’ answered Mrs. Cumfrit—there was a tinge of colour in her face now, Mrs. Colquhoun noticed; perhaps the tight rug was choking her—‘but I shall get back quicker like this.’
‘I wonder,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun grimly.
She watched them disappear in a cloud of dust, and then turned to go home, where she had several things to see to before lunching at the Manor; but, pausing, she decided that she would walk round into the village instead, and see if she could meet Stephen. Perhaps he would be able to explain Mr. Monckton.
And Catherine did not, after all, get back quicker. No sooner was she off, at what seemed to her a great pace, than she began to have misgivings about it, for it occurred to her that on her feet she could go where she liked, but in Christopher’s side-car she would have to go where he did.
‘That’s the turning,’ she called out—she found she had to speak very loud to get heard above the din the thing made—pointing to a road to the right a short distance ahead.
‘Is it?’ Christopher shouted back; and rushed past it.