"Not next Sunday—the Sunday after," Dahlia pleaded. "He is not here now."
"Where is he?" Anthony asked.
"He's in the country."
Anthony pounced on her, as he had done previously.
"You said to me he was abroad."
"In the country—abroad. Not—not in the great cities. I could not make known your wishes to him."
She gave this cool explanation with her eyelids fluttering timorously, and rose as she uttered it, but with faint and ill-supporting limbs, for during the past hour she had gone through the sharpest trial of her life, and had decided for the course of her life. Anthony was witless thereof, and was mystified by his incapability of perceiving where and how he had been deluded; but he had eaten all the muffin on the plate, and her rising proclaimed that she had no intention of making him call for another; which was satisfactory. He drank off her cup of tea at a gulp.
The waitress named the sum he was to pay, and receiving a meditative look in return for her air of expectancy after the amount had been laid on the table, at once accelerated their passage from the shop by opening the door.
"If ever I did give pennies, I'd give 'em to you," said Anthony, when he was out of her hearing. "Women beat men in guessing at a man by his face. Says she—you're honourable—you're legal—but prodigal ain't your portion. That's what she says, without the words, unless she's a reader. Now, then, Dahly, my lass, you take my arm. Buckle to. We'll to the West. Don't th' old farmer pronounce like 'toe' the West? We'll 'toe' the West. I can afford to laugh at them big houses up there.
"Where's the foundation, if one of them's sound? Why, in the City.