“Yes, well, you must give them time to get over that,” he advised. “You'll probably find that they'll settle down quite comfortably in the end.”
“I hope they may,” said Stella. “I only know that I'm definitely not going to go on living here as things are at present. Aunt Harriet's all right with Guy, but she doesn't like me, and doesn't leave me alone for a minute. Everything I do is bound to be wrong. I told Mummy last night I couldn't stick it much longer.”
He looked concerned, but said cheerfully: “Well, you won't have to, will you? When are you going to get married?”
She did not answer at once, and when she did it was in a studiedly offhand tone. “Oh, not for a year, anyway! We never meant to get married this year, you know, and now that all this has happened we both think we ought to put it off at least till everything's been cleared up and I'm out of mourning.”
He took hold of her wrist, and made her stand still. “My dear child, there's nothing wrong, is there?”
“Oh, good lord, no!” said Stella. “As a matter of fact, it was my idea that we'd better wait a bit. I practically insisted on it, because there's Deryk's practice to be considered, and—and if we've got a murderer in the family he might like to think twice about marrying into it.”
“Not if he's a decent chap,” Rumbold said.
“Well, naturally, he didn't say that. But he does quite agree with me about not plunging into marriage until things have blown over. What I want to do is to share a tiny flat with a girl I knew at school. She's taken up dressdesigning, and I thought I might get some sort of a job too. Do you think I'd be any good as a mannequin?”
“No, I don't,” he replied. “What does your mother say about it?”
“Oh, she's against it, of course, but I expect she'll come round to it in time. She had to admit that it's pretty (rightful at home now, but I got fed-up, because she would keep on moaning about it's being far worse for her than for Guy and me.”