Rocket went out. She turned to her daughter.
“I’m glad you’ve enjoyed your afternoon, dear. I couldn’t think what had happened to you. I waited until half-past three.”
“Waited?”
“Yes—to go to the Stores. You said at breakfast that you’d come with me—that you’d be back by three. I waited until half-past.... It was quite all right, dear. Millie went with me. She had seen you—you and Philip at Hyde Park Corner—so, of course, I didn’t wait any longer.”
Katherine stared at her mother: the colour slowly left her face and her hand went up to her cheeks with a gesture of dismay.
“Mother!... How could I!”
“It didn’t matter, dear, in the slightest ... dear me, no. We went, Millie and I, and got the hot-water bottles, very good and strong ones, I think, although they said they couldn’t positively guarantee them. You never can tell, apparently, with a hot-water bottle.”
Katherine’s eyes, now, were wide and staring with distress.
“How could I possibly have forgotten? It was talking about it at breakfast when Aunt Aggie too was talking about something, and I got confused, I suppose. No, I haven’t any excuse at all. It was seeing Philip unexpectedly....”
She stopped abruptly, realising that she had said the worst thing possible.