Major Winchester smiled again, a kindly but somewhat rallying smile.
“Florence,” he said, “you are getting on. I’m not a clever man, and I’m not a prophet. All the same, I believe, some day you will say good-bye to scepticism and cynicism, and all the rest of them.”
“It will be thanks to you and Eva if ever I do,” she said softly. Then, with her usual dislike to any approach to sentiment or emotion, she hastened to change the subject. “How is Angey?” she said. “Mamma or somebody spoke as if there had been news of her.”
“I heard from, or of her, too, this morning,” her cousin replied. “Just the old thing, waiting till her eyes are ready for the operation. They are trying to be hopeful. Her husband is very unselfish, I must say; nevertheless, I cannot understand what made her marry him. My letter was from Arthur. He says—” But a sudden sound of voices just behind where they were standing, or walking, made him stop.
“Who in the world?” he began; then added quickly, “We are unlucky, Florence. Here are Trixie and her double, and that offensive boy, Calthorp. I wish we had not let them know we were coming this way, and I wish I had not let Miss Wentworth go exploring. They have all been in there together.”
He looked and felt really annoyed. Florence cared less, but in her softened mood she was inclined to sympathise with him, as the noisy party emerged from the caves laughing and talking loudly. Miss Forsyth was the first to greet them.
“I can’t congratulate you on the way you do your duty as a cicerone, Florry,” she said. (Florence especially detested Miss Forsyth using her pet name.) “We ran across Miss Wentworth all by herself in the cave. She might have been lost and never heard of any more.”
Major Winchester tamed to Imogen. She was looking rather pale; truth to tell, she was tired and very cold, and rather cross.
“What was Oliver about?” he said. “He promised to look after you. You weren’t really frightened, were you?” he added in a lower tone.
“No, not exactly. But I don’t think any one would like to be all alone in a dark care where they’ve never been before,” said Imogen, childishly but resentfully. “Mr Oliver Helmont and Mrs Wyngate went another way. I don’t know where.”