“For calling me a liar.”
“I didn’t use the word.”
“Then use it—now.”
“You’re a liar, Stuart.”
She was unable to tell if his evident anger were assumed or genuine. But, if the latter, so much the better; she anticipated a pleasurable excitement from the unexplored territory beyond the limits of his tolerance.
He was speaking again. And Peter wished he would free his voice from its straining bonds of control.
“Quite right. I am a liar. A very plausible and rather dangerous liar. But, quite by accident, in the present instance I happen to be speaking the truth. When you’ve recovered from your attitude of scepticism, ring me up. Good-bye.”
Peter went for a walk. She walked hard for a couple of hours; avoided the plunging soil of pasture-land, in favour of hard country roads, where her feet met with a ringing resistance. On reaching a village, six miles distant from Thatch Lane, she entered without hesitation the local post-office.
... “Hullo!”
“Stuart.”