“I’m always happy,” Prudence replied calmly, “when I’ve some one to talk to who isn’t Wortheton.”
“Oh!” he said, a little damped. “So that’s it? Well, I’m happy sitting here talking with some one who is Wortheton.”
“I’m not up to sample,” she said, amused. “If you want local colour, call at the Vicarage—or take William as a specimen. Wortheton is earnest in woof.”
She looked so pretty and so impish as she drew her invidious comparisons that Steele was unable to suppress a smile of sympathy. Her criticism of her brother was wanting in loyalty; but he could find in his heart no blame for her: he did not like William, possibly because William had so pointedly refrained from extending further hospitality to him. The young man had counted on an extension, and was disappointed.
“You’ll shake the dust off your feet some day,” he hazarded, and thought how agreeable it would be to assist in the escape. Visions of scorching across country in a motor with her beside him floated pleasantly through his brain.
“Some day,” she returned a little vaguely, and looked pensively into the distance. “Yes, I’ll do that... But it’s so difficult to find a way.”
“Time will solve that difficulty, I expect,” he said.
She glanced towards him brightly, a look of expectant eagerness shining in her eyes. He felt that when the opportunity offered she would not be slow in seizing it, and was unreasonably angry at the thought of his own uncertain prospects, which offered not the faintest hope of his ever being able to hire, much less own, the necessary car in which to scorch across country with anyone.
“You say such nice, encouraging things,” she observed. “I hope time won’t be long in solving the difficulty. It would be horrid to be forced to live here until I am middle-aged.”
“I’m afraid you will be disappointed when you get out into the world,” he said. “Life is pretty much the same elsewhere as here, I take it. It is what we make it—largely.”