For a long time, the two girls stood there, side by side, Eveley looking into the haze of the sea miles below, Miriam staring down through the pines to where she knew a car might be waiting in the shadows.
“We must not keep him waiting,” she said at last.
Without a word, they turned, hand in hand and started down to the road again. When she saw the little, well-known car beneath the trees, and Lem standing rigid beside it, she caught her breath suddenly. Eveley would have hung back, to let her greet her husband alone, but Miriam clung to her hand and pulled her forward.
He came to meet them, awkwardly, a gleam of hope in his eyes, but meekness in his manner. He held out his hand, and Miriam with a little flutter dropped her own into it, pulling it quickly away again.
“Are you—all right, Lem? You look—thin,” she said with shy solicitude.
“I feel thin,” he replied grimly. “Are—you coming with us?”
“Yes, of course,” said Eveley.
“Yes, of course,” Miriam echoed faintly.
“Shall I drive?” suggested Eveley, anticipating complete reconciliation for the two in their first moment of privacy.
“I will drive,” said Lem. “You girls sit in the back. Did Eveley explain that I only expect to be—your driver, and your valet, and your servant—for a while.”