'Thanks, no.'
'Brosy, fetch me my camp-stool out of the fly—I will sit here a few minutes with Frau X. You were having a little post-prandial nap?' she added, turning to me still smiling.
'Ante-prandial.'
'What, you have been in the woods ever since we parted this morning at the Jagdschloss? Brosy,' she called after him, 'bring the tea-basket out as well. My dear Frau X., you must be absolutely faint. Do you not think it injudicious to go so many hours without nourishment? We will make tea now instead of a little later, and I insist on your eating something.'
Really this was very obliging. What had happened to the bishop's wife? Her urbanity was so marked that I thought it could only be a beautiful dream, and I rubbed my eyes before answering. But it was undoubtedly Mrs. Harvey-Browne. She had been home since I saw her last, rested, lunched, put on fresh garments, perhaps bathed; but all these things, soothing as they are, could not by themselves account for the change. Also she spoke to me in English for the first time. 'You are very kind,' I murmured, staring.
'Just imagine,' she said to Ambrose, who approached across the crackling leaves with the camp-stool, tea-basket, and cushions from the seats of the fly waiting in the forest road a few yards away, 'this little lady has had nothing to eat all day.'
'Oh I say!' said Brosy sympathetically.
'Little lady?' I repeated to myself, more and more puzzled.
'If you must lean against a hard grave,' said Brosy; 'at least, let me put this cushion behind your back. And I can make you much more comfortable if you will stand up a moment.'
'Oh I am so stiff,' I exclaimed as he helped me up; 'I must have been here hours. What time is it?'