‘Surely, in such matters as that she has a very good right.’
‘Yes, to be sure,’ he said doubtfully, and then laughed. ‘She came to see you, too—and I lay there, like a spider in a web, wondering if she would also come in to wait for you; but Miss Patty was not so kind to my mother as to me. I heard her answer unhesitatingly, “Not at home!” with a voice like that of a groom of the chambers. She has great capabilities, Patty.’
‘And did you not go out, to say——’
‘What should I have said? I was waiting, feeling that you would probably snub me for my pains, and why should I interfere with my mother? She left a card with a message pencilled on it, which I had the honourable feeling not to read. It got upon my nerves to be in the same room with it, and if I had not come out to meet you I should have yielded to the temptation.’
‘That would have been as bad as opening a letter,’ said Mab, who had as yet taken no part.
‘Would it, do you think? It was open; there would have been no seal broken; but, at all events, I resisted temptation, so you must praise me and not censure, Miss Mab.’
‘And how did you know,’ said Mab, while her mother pondered, ‘that we were coming this way!’
‘Give me the basket and I will tell you. What is in it? Worms? But also clay and earth. Have you not mud enough already in Watcham, that you must bring in more from the woods?’
‘Give me my basket again,’ said Mab indignantly; ‘there’s a clump of wood anemones, beauties, and the famous coltsfoot that only grows at Denham. I have hunted for it for years, and I only found it to-day. Give it me back.’
‘I am not worthy to carry such treasures,’ said Leo, ‘but the contact will do me good.’