She was surprised at Gareth's delight in her description. The haphazard jumble of geography and jam and millers and murders and swine, appealed to him as a spinner of words.... He was very happy; and happier still when they finally arrived at their fairy-tale destination, and were able at last to cower from the malevolent weather in front of a jovial red fire, in the parlour of the mill-house. He insisted on removing Patricia's slouch hat, and her tweed jacket with its deep leather pockets, and her gauntlet gloves; and on strenuously holding up each dripping article in turn before the blaze ... till her lazy laughing voice remonstrated that she had no use for toasted gloves, and would he please make room for her to dry her hair.... Turning, he saw that she had loosened the wet coils, which now lay in a rumpled glister about her shoulders.
"I'm enjoying this," she remarked with the innocent candour that, had he but known it, always presaged her most disconcerting remarks. "The miller's lady is getting our tea, and my book is as good as accepted, and you're well on the way to fall in love with me.... I put it to you—what could be more pleasant?"
"Sit down and let me scrape the mud from your shoes." He was glad of an excuse to avert his face; glad too to be kneeling in an attitude of worship in front of her; most of all glad that he was looking after her so well.... Yes, undoubtedly he was looking after her; he had conducted this expedition without a hitch so far; and he had been masterful over the umbrella—the memory enfolded him in a sense of rest to which he had been a stranger for years.
Patricia lay back in her arm-chair, and watched him from under her drooping lids. Let matters take their course—why not? It was two years now since Dacres' curt good-bye on that nightmare thirtieth of December. Her dormant vitality was unashamedly eager for another awakening and a different awakening; anything less excellent in the same line would inevitably have invited comparison. But Gareth Temple touched a semi-humorous semi-maternal fount of tenderness within her, which Upton never had approached.... Her hand stole out towards his massive iron-grey head bent before her—then quickly she drew back, as their Yorkshire hostess entered with the Cornish heavy-cake and the teapot.
"Ah, now, I came all the way from London to taste that cake of yours, Mrs. Thorpe," Patricia announced gallantly.
Mrs. Thorpe looked lugubrious; and gave information that she was not Mrs. Thorpe, but Mrs. Thorpe's sister; and Mrs. Thorpe was dead; and she hoped the cake would be to their liking—"And that be her funeral-card yonder on wall; and ef ee want anything else ee'll be speakin' fur et..." the door closed.
"Oh, Hell!" ruefully exclaimed Patricia, whose tongue all too easily became profane. "I hope the talent runs in the family."
Evidently this was not the case. The cake proved to be sopping wet, and beyond all normal heaviness of heavy-cake.
"We simply dare not leave it untouched, after my injudicious remarks. I'm sorry for you, Gareth Temple, but you'll have to swallow double portion, as an act of fealty to me."
But at his apprehensive gaze towards the cake, she relented; and suggested instead that they should burn it. "Chuck it on the fire! Will it leave any traces of itself, I wonder?"