She moved on, walking rapidly now, but a slight undertone of annoyance had crept into her voice, tinging her humor with sarcasm. Armathwaite said nothing. The sun-laved landscape glowed again after a few seconds of cold brilliance—a natural phenomenon all the more remarkable inasmuch as no cloud flecked the sky.
Thus, in silence, they neared the limp individuality huddled dejectedly on a strip of turf by the roadside. To Armathwaite's carefully suppressed amusement, he saw that the wanderer was indeed wearing thin, patent-leather shoes.
"Percy!" cried the girl.
Percy looked up again. He drew the fore-finger of his right hand around the back of his neck between collar and skin, as though his head required adjustment in this new position.
"Hallo, Meg!" he said, and the greeting was not only languid but bored.
"What in the world are you doing here?" she went on, halting in front of him.
"I dunno," he said. "I'm beastly fagged, I can tell you—"
Armathwaite smiled, but Marguérite laughed outright.
"There's nothing to grin at," came the querulous protest. "Once upon a time I labored under the impression that England was a civilized country, but now I find it's habitable only in parts, and this isn't one of the parts, not by a jolly long way. I say, Meg, you booked to Leyburn, didn't you?"
"Yes."