“Put them in your pocket,” she said, “and be sure to post them very carefully.”
[p88]
“I posts a good few ’ereabouts, and no complaints,” smiled Larkin. “So nothing’s wanted?” There was a note of sadness in the last question.
“Well, perhaps I could do with a tin of sponge fingers,” said Miss Bibby softening.
“Thank you, Miss Bibby, ma—am, twopence,” said Larkin, digging his heel into his horse and flying off. Twopence represented his commission; of course, without knowing it, he was falling into the habit of calculating it aloud.
Miss Bibby walked slowly back along the path, and with one slender white hand drew out again from her sleeve the agitating letter from Thomas. Again she read it steadily. Again she walked back to the gate, thinking deeply.
Actually at the gate she lifted her eyes and looked, with a quivering sigh at “Tenby,” blinking shadeless in the afternoon sun.
The thing was impossible, of course. Not for anything in the world could she march up to that dread door and calmly propose to interview its almost sacred tenant.
Yet what a chance it was—in very truth the chance of all her lifetime! To have a story in print and paid for, she had craved this during all the long years that separate fourteen from thirty-six.
Again she walked towards the house, again [p89] back, this time along a higher path, to look yet again across the front hedge to the fateful cottage opposite.
And this time the higher position disclosed a view of the cottage not obtainable from the big gate. And this view included a little side verandah. And the little side verandah included Miss Kinross, her ample proportions disposed upon a small rocking-chair,—Miss Kinross amiably engaged in eating bananas, and reading a penny woman’s paper in the hope of finding therein some new dish with which to tempt Hugh’s appetite.