"Go, I should think you would go, you one-eyed old image you. Did you think I was going to fetch her to wait your pleasure?"
Mrs Ffolliot laid down her book as her husband came across the wide old hall. She made room for him on the window-seat beside her. She noticed that he was flushed and that his hair was almost shaggy.
"Have you got a headache, Larrie?" she asked in her kind voice. "I hope Grantly had nothing disturbing to relate."
"Yes, no," Mr Ffolliot replied vaguely; "I've been thinking things over, my dear, and I've come round to your opinion that perhaps it would be the right thing to ask young Gallup to dinner on the twenty-first. There will be the Campions and the Wards to keep him in countenance."
"I'm so glad you see it as I do," Mrs Ffolliot said gently, looking, however, much surprised. "After all, he may not come, you know."
"He'll come," and his wife wondered why the Squire laid such grim emphasis upon the words.
"By the way," Mr Ffolliot said in quite a new tone, "you were saying something the other day about your mother's very kind offer to have Mary for some weeks after the May drawing-room. I think it would be a good thing. You don't want the fag and expense of going up to town so soon after you've come home. Let her stay with her grandmother for a bit and go out—see that she has proper clothes—they will enjoy having the child, and she will see something of the world. Let her have her fling—don't hurry her."
"Why, Hilary, what a volte-face! When I spoke to you about it before
I was ill you said it was out of the question . . ."
"My dear," said Mr Ffolliot testily, "only stupid people think that they must never change their minds. I have decided that it will be good for Mary to leave Redmarley for a bit. You must remember that I have been carefully observing her for the last few weeks. She will grow narrow and provincial if she never meets anyone except the Garsetshire people. Surely you must see that?"
"May I tell Mary? It's such fun when you're young to look forward to things."