General Grantly went outside with the chauffeur, and Eloquent again experienced the queer dream-like sense of doing again something he had done already as he followed Mrs Ffolliot into the motor. He had never lost his awestruck admiration for her, and it never occurred to him to sit down at her side. He was about to put down one of the little seats and sit on that, when she said, "Oh, please, sit here, Mr Gallup," and he sank into the seat beside her, confused and tremulous. Mary and Mrs Grantly had come into the porch with them, and stood there now calling out all sorts of messages and questions. The inner door stood open, and the hall shone bright behind them.
The motor purred and slid swiftly down the drive.
Mrs Ffolliot switched off the light behind her head, and Eloquent became conscious of a soft pervading scent of violets. The twenty years that lay between her first visit to his father's shop and this wonderful new nearness seemed to him but as one short link in a chain of inevitable circumstances. Like a picture thrown on a screen he saw the little boy standing at her knee, the giggling shop assistants, and his father flushed and triumphant. And he knew that through all the years he had always been sure that such a moment as this would come, when he would sit beside her as an equal and a friend. . . . And here he was, sitting with her in her father's motor, sharing the same fur rug. What was she saying?
Something kind about the trouble he had taken . . . and the motor stopped at his aunt's gate.
* * * * * *
Uz was in the midst of a large bite of plum-cake when Eloquent announced his errand. Uz hastily took another bite, and just as the Kitten drew attention to her grandfather's tea he quietly opened the door of the hall, shut it after him softly, did the same by the front door, and hatless, coatless, and in his pumps—for his boots were exceedingly dirty, and Nana had caught him and turned him back to change before tea—he started down the drive at a good swinging run. His wind was excellent, and he reached Miss Gallup's gate in about five minutes. Only once had he stopped, when the piece of cake he was carrying broke off short and dropped in the mud; he peered about for it during some four seconds, then gave it up and ran on.
The lamp was lit in Miss Gallup's sitting-room, but the blind was not pulled down. He looked in at the window and saw his brother lying on the sofa under the eiderdown, opened the front door—no one ever locks a door in Redmarley unless they go out, and then the key is always under the scraper—and walked in.
"Hullo," said Buz; "isn't this rotten?"
"Little man's just come, so I did a bunk. I didn't wait to hear his revelations about the lovely suffragette——"
"I don't believe he'll tell," Buz said; "he's not a bad little chap, he wasn't a bit shirty, helped me out of those beastly clothes and never said a word; took them with him too, so's they shouldn't be found here. I say, by the way, tell Adèle to get the jacket mended and I'll pay it whenever I can get any money. I'm frightfully sorry about that—he cut the sleeve right up to get my arm out. Who got the togs?"