“Go off!”
“Yes, for the day! I’ve thought it all out. We can take the pony-cart and just catch the nine o’clock at Rasselas. That’ll get us to Clinton by ten. We’ll be down in Roche Cove by eleven—spend the day there, catch the eight-thirty back and be in the house again by half-past ten to-night.”
There was a pause, filled with the delighted twittering of a company of sparrows beyond the open passage-window.
At last her voice:
“Yes. I’ll come.”
“Good.... Hurry!... I’ll tell them downstairs.”
When the family assembled for breakfast and he told them, his eyes challenged Mrs. Trenchard’s.
“Now, look here,” his eyes said, “I’m the dreadful young man who is teaching your boy Henry to drink, who’s ruining your domestic peace—surely you’re not, without protest, going to allow me a whole day with Katherine!”
And her eyes answered him.
“Oh, I’m not afraid.... You’ll come back. You’re a weak young man.”