I went on. "Shall I arrange for you to see him at nine?"
"Is it far?"
"Just across the river."
"I'll call back at quarter to nine, and you must take me."
She climbed into the car without looking at me again, and next moment was gone. Across the road I counted six blinds drawn to one side.
Lumsden never asked whether the man he had brought her a hundred and thirty miles to see was dead or alive. His face was set like a stone. In the main road he turned it to her, a mere dusty mask.
"Where do you want to go now?"
"Go to my house. I'll get you a drink and some breakfast. You must be half dead."
He headed the car for Knightsbridge without a word, and while Frances, sleep struggling with surprise in her bemused brain, was fulfilling her humble rôle in the romance by poaching two eggs over the electric stove, they sat in the dining-room on opposite sides of the table. She had filled a long, thin glass with the beverage his heart loved, but he only sipped it, which was not like Bryan, and turned the tumbler thoughtfully round and round. He avoided her eyes. He had seemed to avoid them all the way up.
"Will you come with me to—to the hospital?" she asked, when the silence had begun to weigh upon her.