“My dears, we shall have no time to dress for dinner!” expostulated the duenna, feeling that this kind of thing had lasted long enough. “En avant, cocher.”
“Won’t you come?” pleaded the pertinacious Delia; “it is on the twenty-ninth, remember—next Thursday week.”
The carriage rolled slowly onward.
“I regret that I shall not be there,” said Ransome decisively.
Delia shook her parasol at him in pretended anger.
He rejoined his wife. She stood surrounded by the shreds of rosemary and thyme which she had plucked and scattered while he was talking. She was very pale; and he knew only too well that she was very angry.
“Come, Viva, it is time we turned homeward,” he said.
“Yes, the sun has gone down, has it not?” she exclaimed mockingly, as she looked after the carriage, which sank below the ragged edge of heather and thyme yonder, as if it had dropped over the cliff.
“Why, my love, the sun is above our heads!”
“Is it? Your sun is gone down, anyhow. She is very lovely, is she not?”