“Not all wives,” he said a little vaguely. “At all events they’d pout and worry to know why I was going and what the horrid telegram was about, and when was I coming back, and where was I going to stay—and so on till the train was lost. And look at you—not a word!”
“Oh, I should have asked you fast enough—when you came back,” said Kate, “and that is the same thing.”
“No, faith, it’s not, Kate; I’d have had leisure to invent my own account by that time,” said Hugh.
[p204]
“Very well,” said Kate, “next time I shall pout.”
Hugh struck a match.
“I can tell you now, as there’s time. I felt I wasn’t making money fast enough by books for our old age, K, and I’ve been speculating a bit. It’s helped to worry me and keep me from work lately. But the shares are rising and I’m going down to be on the spot.”
Then the wagonette drove up and he seized his bag and his hat, and Kate ran after him to the gate with his pipe.
When Miss Bibby heard from the children that he had gone away, she sighed deeply. And at night when the little ones were all asleep, and Anna, her face smeared with Pauline’s sunburn cream, her hair damp with the preparation bought to improve Muffie’s thin hair, and her teeth ashine with the family tooth powder, was on her way to bed, and the mist had crept up to the windows and wrapped everything in its eerie shroud, Miss Bibby sighed again.
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