Peter’s heart beat hotly, madly. Here was She, actually She in the flesh, toasting him in his own room. He poured out another glass.
“To you,” he said, and under his breath he added, “My Lady, my Star, my altogether Divinity!” Then he moved firmly to the door.
“I cannot allow you to go,” said Anne quickly.
“Alas!” said Peter, smiling, “then I must forego your permission. In less than half an hour, in twenty minutes perhaps, your carriage will be here.” And he vanished into the sluice without.
“And now,” he said, as he set off at a half-canter down the lane, “if she does glance round the room and find it sleeping-apartment as well as sitting-room, she will, I trust, be less embarrassed. For Heaven knows whether in some particulars she may not bow to old Dame Grundy’s decrees. Bless her!” And it is to be conjectured that it was not on Mrs. Grundy’s head that Peter’s blessing was invoked.
Anne, left to solitude, a blazing fire, and a glass of port, sat for a moment or so deep in thought. [Pg 177]Who was this man, with his little imperative ways, his abrupt speech, hiding, she was well aware, a certain embarrassment? He was well-born, there was no doubt about that fact. His voice, in spite of its abruptness, had the pleasant modulation of breeding. His hands—she had noticed his hands—were long-fingered, flexible, and brown. They were also well kept. Who was he? But who was he?
The fire offering her no solution, she finished her glass of port, and, kneeling down by the hearth, let the warmth of the flames play upon her wet blouse. She unpinned her hat and shook the rain from it. The drops sizzled as they fell among the flames and glowing sticks. She put her hat on the ground beside her and turned towards the room. She scrutinized it with interest. It was barely furnished but spotlessly clean. Against the farther wall she saw a truckle-bed covered with a blanket of cheerful red and blue stripes; she saw a cupboard on which were tea-things; a table; two chairs; and the chair on which she had been sitting. And that was all.
Then on the table she saw lying a pair of green socks; softly green they were, and somewhat [Pg 178]faded, and beside them was a card of green—virulently green—mending wool.
“O-oh!” said Anne, with a little shudder. But after a moment she rose from her knees in order to examine them closer. One sock had a patch of virulent green in the heel, a neat darn enough.
“Long practice,” said Anne, with a little shake of the head. In the other was a hole—quite a good-sized hole.