"It would be useless. I go away to-morrow."
"For good?"
"For some weeks."
"If you return, perhaps you would honour me by calling on me. I never see anyone. But, if you would permit me to say so, your friendship would be an honour."
"Thank you, but I don't know what I shall be doing," said Mavis wearily.
A few moments later, Major Perigal took his leave, but without recovering from his unaffected surprise at Mavis's honesty. He looked at her many times, to say, as he went out of the door of the parlour:
"I always believed Charles to have brains: now I know him to be a cursed fool."
The following day, Mavis, accompanied by Mrs Trivett and Jill, set out for Swanage. They took train to Dorchester, where they changed into the South-Western system, which carried them to Swanage, after making a further change at ancient Wareham. Arrived at Swanage station, they took a fly to the house of a Mrs Budd, where lodgings, at the doctor's recommendation, had been secured. On their way to Mrs Budd's, Mavis noticed a young man in a hand-propelled tricycle, which the fly overtook. The nature of the machine told Mavis that its occupant was a cripple.
If she had encountered him eighteen months ago, her heart would have filled with pity at seeing the comely young man's extremity: now, she looked at him very much as she might have noticed a cat crossing the road.
Mrs Budd was waiting on the doorstep in anxious expectation of her lodgers. To see her white hair, all but toothless mouth, and wrinkled face, she looked seventy, which was about her age; but to watch her alert, brisk movements, it would seem as if she enjoyed the energy of twenty. She ushered Mavis into her apartments, talking volubly the while; but the latter could not help seeing that, whereas she was treated with the greatest deference by the landlady, this person quite ignored the existence of Mrs Trivett.