Somehow she felt immensely relieved at this hint of opposition.
“I’m so glad you got away,” she whispered, and then repented in a flutter.
“Not more so than I am,” he answered, pressing her hand.
“And now,” he added, “I should like to know how near Ashditch Junction you propose to take me.”
“Where are you going to, Mr Beveridge?”
The “Mr Beveridge” was thrown in as a corrective to the hand-pressure.
“To London; where else, my Alicia? With £10, [pg 59] 17s. 6d. in my pocket, I shall be able to eat at least three good dinners, and, by the third of them, if I haven’t fallen on my feet it will be the first time I have descended so unluckily.”
“But,” she asked, considerably disconcerted, “I thought you were going back to your parish.”
For a moment he too seemed a trifle put about. Then he replied readily, “So I am, as soon as I have purchased the necessary outfit, restocked my ecclesiastical library, and called on my bishop.”
She felt greatly relieved at this justification of her share in the adventure.