“Nor will you,” said Miss Pettigrew smiling, but I think maliciously.
“I shall simply stay here,” I said, “and go on having influenza.”
I have so much respect for Miss Pettigrew that I do not like to say she grinned at me but she certainly employed a smile which an enemy might have described as a grin.
“The election here,” she said, “your election takes place, as I understand, early next week. Your mother will expect you home after that.”
“Mothers are often disappointed,” I said. “Look at Hilda’s, for instance. And in any case my mother is a reasonable woman. She’ll respect a doctor’s certificate, and McMeekin will give me that if I ask him.”
The Canon had evidently not been attending to what Miss Pettigrew and I were saying to one another. He broke in rather abruptly:
“Is there any other place more attractive than Brazil?”
He was thinking of Lalage, not of himself. I do not think he cared much where he went so long as he got far from Ireland.
“There are, I believe,” I said, “still a few cannibal tribes left in the interior of Borneo. There are certainly head hunters there.”
“Dyaks,” said Miss Pettigrew.