She had come in now to bring me her invitation, and her husband's invitation, to stay. Her husband, she said, expected me. He was out; he had had to go to a Diocesan Meeting—but it would be over by now, the tiresome meeting, and he would be here in a few minutes.
I protested. I had taken rooms at my Fifteenth Century hotel.
She insisted. They could make that all right. They knew the hotel-keeper. He was used to having people taken from him at the last minute. They would send round for my things. My room was waiting for me.
I said, Really?—But they were too kind—
She said, No. It was the least they could do.
This, with its faint suggestion of indebtedness, was as near as she got to the situation.
She must have sighted it in the distance, for she slanted away from it with a perilous and graceful sweep. She had heard so much about me from her daughter. She had wanted to make my acquaintance. She was glad of this opportunity—
(We smiled at each other to show that there was nothing to wince at in her phrase.)
I said I was glad of it too, and what a charming garden they had.
Wasn't it? And did I know Canterbury? I wished I did. Well—I would know it now. And if I didn't mind ringing the bell the butler would fetch my things over from the "Tabard." And so on, charmingly, till the Canon came in and relieved her.