“Oh well, old man, you wouldn’t like me to be helpless, and foolish, and woolly-lambified, would you? It wouldn’t be half so interesting. Just fancy if you had a sister like Doris Hayward, can you imagine anything tamer?”
He stiffened again, but she did not notice it.
“As for Thursday night, you never ought to have heard about it, and you never would have done if Uncle Bruce had not been such an old telltale. Just wait till I get him alone; that’s all. Anyhow, he didn’t think it a heinous crime did he? I expect he gave a great laugh that startled every one within hearing.”
As that was exactly what had happened, Dudley made no comment.
“And Sir Edwin Crathie would only have thought me a fool if I had been afraid to come back with him. These things will happen occasionally. They are not worth worrying about. You are too anxious over trifles, Dudley.” She moved away towards the door. “Well, good-night, don’t forget to return thanks that anyhow I am not in a hospital, generally smashed up.”
She left him, and retired to bed, feeling a little depressed. Of course he had not forgiven her, nor would he see things from her point of view. She almost wished he did not mind; but all her life she had had an affection that was almost adoration for her one brother, and it always depressed her to displease him, however indifferent she might seem.
She awoke next morning with the sense of depression still lingering, and set off for the City in far from her usual spirits. The office seemed dingy and dull, and the routine wearisome. It felt like ages and ages since she had driven home through the darkness in Sir Edwin’s beautiful car. She wondered if it was real at all; only what else should make all the old friends at the office appear so uninteresting and commonplace.
She speculated a little forlornly as to whether she would ever be likely to see him again, and decided it was most unlikely, and that probably he had already forgotten the whole incident.
And just when she had reached that point in her meditations, the telephone boy came to tell her some one was asking for her. She asked him dispiritedly who it was, and he replied that the gentleman had declined to give a name.
Hal shut herself into the case, took down the receiver, and, still dispiritedly, asked: “Hullo! Are you there?”