The room was gaily feted out with flowers, and she glanced round to find what I had asked for; but there were none, and she was saying, "there are none; it is rather late—" when Langler walked in. I was angry with fate, for it was an anniversary date with her and me; and jealous, for into his jacket she pinned a rosebud.
On sitting to table she said to her brother: "Aubrey, Mrs Edwards wants you and me to go over to Goodford. I have just answered that we have a guest, and, of course, she will ask us to bring him too."
"Would you care?" Langler asked me: "they are crude but worthy folk, as you know, and their guests are often well chosen."
I said that I should be glad to go.
"But as to Mrs Robinson?" asked Langler of his sister.
"She died just before nine," answered Miss Emily. "I came home with John after eleven, so wouldn't disturb you, as I had made all the arrangements. Dr Burton went away at seven, came back after Compline, frowned excommunications at me, sprinkled the body, said a prayer from the Alexandrine Liturgy of St Basil, and groaned 'poor sheep!' with the very tenderness of the Good Shepherd. I should revere that man, if I didn't despise him."
"Ah? is that so?" asked Langler, with his smile.
We spoke through breakfast of Mrs Robinson and her missing son, of the Prime Minister's guests at Goodford, of our probable visit to him, and again of the missing man.
"Do you know," said Miss Emily in her dry way, hardly meaning, I think, to be taken seriously, "I have my theory of Robinson? Given a village like Ritching, where nothing odd ever happens, when two odd things happen in it those two will be related. Is that a fair statement of a law of probability?"
"Excellent, I think," I answered.