"The lassie, sir, will wait till she is asked," retorted the mother.
When Griff reached Gorsthwaite that evening, it struck him that something was amiss with Kate. His late uneasiness about his mother had sharpened his eyes, and he was awake to the restlessness in Kate's movements. From time to time, too, she looked wistfully at him, and seemed on the point of speaking. More than all, he noted that she was disposed to be lavish of caresses, in a way that fitted ill with her wonted undemonstrative strength.
"What ails you, wife?" he ventured once.
"Nothing—nothing at all, dear. Why do you ask?"
"You are so unlike yourself. Have I left you alone too much lately? Say the word, Katey, and I'll give up the farming, and—and the horse. They take me away a good deal between them."
"Nonsense, Griff. You are going to give up nothing at all, except your foolish suspicions of me. I am the happiest woman in the world at this moment."
Alas for his inexperience! In that curious, half-hysterical assertion of happiness, he might have read all that she longed to tell him. But he missed it, and went on to talk of Dereham's coming on the morrow.
"He is rather fastidious, you know," laughed Griff; "what can we give him to eat? Luckily we have a brace of grouse ready for cooking. How would an omelette be?"
"I can't make them," protested Kate, vaguely uneasy at the mention of Dereham's fastidiousness.
"But I can—beauties! It is high time you learned; I'll give you a lesson in the morning. Oh, yes, we shall manage famously! Tell the cook, wifey, that she can have a morning off to-morrow, because I mean to turn her kitchen upside down."