CHAPTER XXI
I was late for luncheon, very late. My mother had left the dining-room when I got home, but I found her and she readily agreed to leave the letters she was writing and to sit beside me while I ate. It was not, as I discovered, sympathy for my exhaustion and hunger which induced her to do this. She was full of curiosity.
“Well,” she said, as I helped myself to some cold pie, “what was it?”
“It was Lalage,” I said. “You guessed that before I started.”
There was a short pause during which I ate some of the cold pie and found out that it was made, partly at least, of veal. Then my mother asked another question:
“Has she hit on anything unexpected?”
“Quite. She wants Thormanby to insist on the Archdeacon marrying Miss Battersby.”
Even my mother was startled. She gave utterance to an exclamation. If she had been a man she would have sworn. I soothed her.
“It’s not really a bad scheme,” I said, “when you get over the first shock. The Archdeacon, it appears, is bound to marry.”
“Why?”