"We shall be late for the meet."
His eyes avoided hers. He gathered up the reins, evidently conscious.
Smiling, she let him open the gate for her, and then as they passed into the road, shadowed with over-arching trees, she reined in Whitefoot, and bending forward, held out her hand. "Good-bye!"
"You're not coming?"
"I think I've had enough. I'll go home. Good-bye."
It was a relief. In both minds had risen the image of their arrival together—amid the crowd of the meet. As he looked at her—gratefully—the grace of her movement, the temptation of her eyes, the rush of old memories suddenly turned his head. He gripped her hand hard for a minute, staring at her.
The road in front of them was quite empty. But fifty yards behind them was a small red-brick house buried in trees. As they still paused, hand in hand, in front of the gate into the wood, which had failed to swing back and remained half open, the garden door of this house unclosed and a young woman in a kind of uniform stepped into the road. She perceived the two riders—stopped in astonishment—observed them unseen, and walked quickly away in the direction of the station.
Roger reached Heston that night only just in time to dress for dinner.
By this time he was in a wholly different mood; angry with himself, and full of rueful thought about his wife. Daphne and he had been getting on anything but well for some time past. He knew that he had several times behaved badly; why, indeed, that very afternoon, had he held Chloe Fairmile's hand in the public road, like an idiot? Suppose anyone had passed? It was only Daphne's tempers and the discomfort at home that made an hour with Chloe so pleasant—and brought the old recollections back. He vowed he never thought of her, except when she was there to make a fool of him—or plague him about those beastly letters. Whereas Daphne—Daphne was always in his mind, and this eclipse into which their daily life had passed. He seemed to be always tripping and stumbling, like a lame man among loose stones; doing or saying what he did not mean to do or say, and tongue-tied when he should have spoken. Daphne's jealousy made him ridiculous; he resented it hotly; yet he knew he was not altogether blameless.
If only something could be done to make Daphne like Heston and the neighbours! But he saw plainly enough that in spite of all the effort and money she was pouring out upon the house, it gave her very little pleasure in return. Her heart was not in it. And as for the neighbours, she had scarcely a good word now for any of them. Jolly!—just as he was going to stand for the County Council, with an idea of Parliament later on! And as for what he wished—what would be good for him—that she never seemed to think of. And, really, some of the things she said now and then about money—nobody with the spirit of a mouse could stand them.