Over the choice of her morning dress she hesitated a moment. She wore dainty washing blouses, and neatly-cut serge skirts as a rule; but this morning something induced her to don a limp lavender muslin that took all the freshness from her cheeks.
Then she went out to the faithful performance of her duties, which no amount of fever in her blood could make her neglect. The hot-water ordeal was gone through, the children were turned out speckless from their [p62] bedrooms, the bedclothes were put to air, and not even her own “deep-breathing exercises” were omitted.
But then she missed Max and Lynn. And after a world of trouble dragged it from Pauline that they had actually gone across to “Tenby” to try to induce Hugh Kinross to give his orders for bacon and such things to Larkin.
Hugh Kinross and bacon! Miss Bibby ran down to the gate almost choking with agitation and distress.
There was a figure crossing the road, with Lynn held by the hand, and the red tricycle, and Max flanking it on the other side. It was a figure of merely medium height, more than a trifle inclined to stoutness, with an ordinary kindly face and shrewd eyes. He wore a white linen suit, creased all over with bad packing, and a soft shirt with a low collar. When he took off his old Panama hat, Miss Bibby saw, quite with a shock, the bald patch at the back of his head.
“Good-morning,” he said pleasantly; “my little friend here tells me you are Miss Bibby. May I introduce myself? My name is Kinross. I have met the Judge on several occasions and I think he will vouch for my respectability. May I take these small ones up the road with me? We are going in hot pursuit of two of the world’s best things—eggs [p63] and bacon. I will return them safely—thank you very much. Good-bye.”
That was all. Not another word, though Miss Bibby, going over and over again in her mind the great meeting, tried hard to imagine that she had forgotten some notable thing he had said. Then she began to torture herself with fears that she had behaved stupidly. The suddenness had been too much for her; she could not recollect one solitary thing that she had said except a fluttering “Certainly,” when he asked permission to take the children with him. What must he have thought of her?
Ah, if it could only happen over again when she should have had time to collect her faculties and make some brilliant and scathing repartee as the women in his books so frequently did. But then again, what chance had his speech offered for repartee? What kindling of conversation could there be when the only tinder provided was—eggs and bacon?
She worried herself to such a degree that when breakfast-time came, her appetite, usually small, had almost reached vanishing-point.
The cause of her flutterings was striding along the red dusty road, Lynn and Max having all they could do to keep up with him.