He looked very much amused. "A couple of sinful scapegoats! I am astonished you ever have us at your house!"
"There you are, mocking me again. You may think as you please, Robert, but it is excessively absurd in a married man. I saw you kiss Rose Jupp the other day."
He broke into a laugh.
"Anything of that before Lady Ellis would be an awful mistake. It might frighten her away again."
"Oh, we will both put on our best behaviour for the old Begum. Do not let doubts of us disturb your sleep, Penelope."
"She is not old, but I daresay she knows what propriety is," sharply concluded Mrs. Chester as the train puffed off. And Mr. Lake, quitting the station, went home laughing.
He found his wife in a reverie. The feeling, that she had done wrong to promise to go to Mrs. Chester's, was making itself unmistakably heard, and Clara tried to analyse it. Why should it be wrong? It was difficult to say. Sunday travelling? But she had gone several times before to spend Sunday with Mrs. Chester, gone and returned the same day; for Guild Rectory, where Mrs. Chester had lived, was short of bedrooms. No, it was not the idea of Sunday travelling that disturbed her, and she could find no other reason. Finally she gave up the trouble of guessing, and her husband came in.
"Were you not too early for the train, Robert?"
"I should think so. Penelope confessed that she wiled me out to talk of her plans. I'll tell you about them directly. What do you think she wound up with, Clara, just as the train was starting?"
He had sat down in a large armchair, and was holding his wife before him by the waist.