"Don't be foolish. Your friend will certainly prefer this house and Valentine's cooking to the pub and the pub's cooking. And he'll save on it. . . . It's no extra trouble. I suppose your friend won't inform against that wretched little suffragette girl upstairs." She paused and said: "You're sure you can do your work in the time and drive Valentine and her to that place . . . Why it's necessary is that the girl daren't travel by train and we've relations there who've never been connected with the suffragettes. The girl can live hid there for a bit. . . . But sooner than you shouldn't finish your work I'd drive them myself . . ."
She silenced Tietjens again: this time sharply:
"I tell you it's no extra trouble. Valentine and I always make our own beds. We don't like servants among our intimate things. We can get three times as much help in the neighbourhood as we want. We're liked here. The extra work you give will be met by extra help. We could have servants if we wanted. But Valentine and I like to be alone in the house together at night. We're very fond of each other."
She walked to the door and then drifted back to say:
"You know I can't get out of my head that unfortunate woman and her husband. We must all do what we can for them." Then she started and exclaimed: "But, good heavens, I'm keeping you from your work . . . The study's in there, through that door."
She hurried through the other doorway and no doubt along a passage, calling out:
"Valentine! Valentine! Go to Christopher in the study. At once . . . at . . ." Her voice died away.
[VII]
Jumping down from the high step of the dog-cart the girl completely disappeared into the silver: she had on an otter-skin toque, dark, that should have been visible. But she was gone more completely than if she had dropped into deep water, into snow—or through tissue paper. More suddenly, at least! In darkness or in deep water a moving paleness would have been visible for a second: snow or a paper hoop would have left an opening. Here there had been nothing.
The constation interested him. He had been watching her intently and with concern for fear she should miss the hidden lower step, in which case she would certainly bark her shins. But she had jumped clear of the cart: with unreasonable pluckiness, in spite of his: "Look out how you get down." He wouldn't have done it himself: he couldn't have faced jumping down into that white solidity . . .