But Larkin had disappeared, his shilling being earned, and some business urgently needing his attendance.
Pauline slipped away to the garden, a resigned look upon her face. She had not meant to be ill-bred; she had no idea she was playing a joke. But she remembered now that Miss Bibby had several times swept [p134] down the cards of Octavius that they had placed on the drawing-room mantelpiece as a means of attracting any visitors’ custom to Larkin. Still she need not have spoken in that angry tone, and called her “ill-bred.” “Ill-bred” was a very uncomfortable word to have suddenly thrust upon one. Pauline leapt up at the gymnastic bar, and swung and wriggled there to shake it off.
Hot and perspiring after several brilliant efforts, that included hanging by the feet, and swinging upwards again, and resuming the perpendicular, Pauline climbed up and sat on the bar, holding to a post and dangling her legs.
From here through a break in the trees she could see the hill, and climbing up it steadily, steadily, Miss Bibby with her long precious envelope for the post tucked beneath her arm.
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CHAPTER XII
IN BLACK AND WHITE
Four days later Kate was reading, rocking and eating banana again in the privacy of the little side verandah, when there came a familiar tramp across the room behind her.
“It can’t be Hugh,” she said aloud, for it had been allowed by the whole party that the seven days of a week were not too long to devote to the thorough “doing” of the marvellous caves.
“By George though, can’t it?” said that gentleman as he came through the doorway, dropped his bag on one chair, and sat down heavily on another.