Sir Robin was not a young man who paid compliments easily. When he did pay one it had always an air of sincerity. Mrs. Morres looked pleased. She was very fond of Robin Drummond.
When he and Mary met at the door a few hours later he made a jest about their dining together again so soon, and they laughed about it—to be sure, that dinner at the restaurant was a secret, something that did not belong to the conventional life. There was the air of a little understanding between them when they presented themselves to Mrs. Morres in the book-room which she used for all purposes of a sitting-room during her flying visit to town. It was a pleasant room, with book-cases all round it filled with green glass in a lattice of brass-work. The books were hidden by the glass, but it reflected every movement of a bird or a twig or a cloud outside like green waters. The ceiling was domed like a sky and painted in sunny Italian scenery. It was not dull in the book-room on the dullest day.
"Did you come together?" Mrs. Morres asked curiously.
"I swear we did not," Sir Robin replied, with mock intensity. "I came from the east, Miss Gray from the west. We met on your doorstep."
"You looked as if you were enjoying a joke when you came in."
"There was time for one between the ringing of the bell and the opening of the door."
"Ah, you see, the people downstairs are very old."
Mary allowed herself to be persuaded to the country expedition next day. The spring had been calling to her, calling to her to come out of London to the fields. More, she consented to go to Hazels on the Saturday. The spring had disturbed her with a delicious disturbance. It was no use trying to be dry-as-dust since the spring had got into her blood. The book must wait till she came back.
On Thursday the exodus from town had not yet begun. They left soon after breakfast. As Mary hurried from her Kensington flat to Paddington Station she met the church-goers with their prayer-books in their hands. It was Holy Thursday, to be sure—a day for solemn thought and thanksgiving. She hoped hers would not be less acceptable because it was made in the quietness of the fields.
It was an exquisite day of April—true Holy Week weather, with white clouds, like lambs straying in the blue pastures of the sky, shepherded by the south-west wind. The almond trees were in bloom. They had begun to drop their blossoms on the pavements, making a dust of roses in London streets. As they went down from Paddington the river-side orchards and gardens were starred with the blossom of pear and plum. Everywhere the birds were singing jocundly. The promise of spring a few days earlier had been nobly fulfilled.