“Did you come here to be quiet, then?” asked Miss Caroline, thrusting in her oar the instant her brother had finished speaking.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Hilyard simply.
Miss Caroline fixed her with a gimlet eye.
“How very surprising!” she remarked. “You don’t look in the least like the sort of person who would choose to live in a quiet country village like Silverquay.”
“Don’t I?” Mrs. Hilyard smiled. But she did not volunteer any explanation of her choice.
Here Ann, recognising Miss Caroline’s now familiar methods of cross-examination, came to the rescue and diverted the conversation into a less personal channel, and shortly afterwards the Tempests left in order to pay some parochial visits in the village, Ann shepherding them as far as the gateway.
Mrs. Hilyard exchanged a sympathetic smile with Robin. “The Miss Carolines of the world are rather trying, aren’t they?” she observed mirthfully. “I think she has gone away fully convinced that there is something ‘queer’ about me—that I’m not quite respectable, probably!”
“Ridiculous!” growled Robin in tones of wrath. “She has only to look at you!”
“Thank you”—meekly. “I’m glad you think I look—respectable.”
“You know I didn’t mean that! I think you look—I think you look—” He floundered and broke off abruptly.