“Oh, yes, but all that way just for a few papers! Couldn't someone else go for you?” said Mavis. “I'm sure I'd love to, if you think I could find them.”
Kenelm, who guessed that Gavin's mocking references to his lameness masked his loathing of it, was not surprised that this well-meant piece of tactlessness met with the treatment he privately thought it deserved.
“Does it seem to you a long way to my house? I thought it was only half a mile. Or are you thinking that my short leg pains me? Do let me set your mind at rest! It doesn't. You have been misled by my ungainliness.”
He turned away, and went, with his uneven gait, to where his hostess was standing. Mavis said, sighing: “I often think it does hurt him, you know.”
“He has told you that it doesn't,” replied Kenelm, rather shortly.
She brought her eyes to bear on his face. “He's so plucky, isn't he? People don't realise what it must mean to him, or make allowances.”
Kenelm felt that he was being reproved for insensibility, and obeyed, with relief, a summons from Mrs. Haswell.
Chapter Three
By the time Gavin returned to The Cedars it was half-past six, and the party was beginning to break up. Mrs. Ainstable was the first to leave, driving home alone in her aged Austin, and very nearly running Gavin down as she came somewhat incautiously round the bend in the drive. She pulled up, calling out: “So sorry! Did I frighten you?”
“Yes, I gave myself up for dead” he replied, leaving the grass verge beside the shrubbery on which he had taken refuge, and approaching the car. “And me a cripple! How could you?”