"That's all right, then. Didn't you say your rehearsal was at 11.30? I might drive you down. Only twenty minutes—you must be punctual, you know, if you are going on the stage."
"Of course," she laughed. "I'll go and get ready at once."
XXV
Ten days had passed. It was like a dream to Margaret to be in London alone, her mother and Hannah at Woodside Farm, and her father on the other side of the world. But she was beginning to be uneasy at what she had done—at taking this step out into the world without her father's knowledge. Perhaps he would be angry with her, or would say, as Tom did, that she had joined the great army of bread-snatchers, the women who were not obliged to work for their living, who had no genius to justify them, no particular talent even, and yet from sheer restlessness and inability to settle down in their homes and quietly fulfil the duties there, had come out into the open and meddled with work that others might do better, and for a wage that meant to those others not added luxuries and frivolities, but the means of living. She wished a hundred times that Mr. Garratt had never come near Woodside Farm, that she had never left it, that she were sitting on the arm of her mother's chair in the living-room once more, looking out at the garden and the beech wood beyond; but something in her heart told her that that happiness was forever at an end. No one approved of the step she had taken except her mother, who had seen the impossibility of her remaining at home. Hannah had shut the door on her, and Tom had shaken his head.
Sir George Stringer had appeared as promptly as possible after getting her note; but, since he was away when it arrived, that was not till a couple of days after she had written it.
He was emphatic enough.
"My dear Margaret—I think I may call you that, as I have known your father all my life—this is simply madness, and, what's more, it's wrong," he said. "You are not old enough to choose your life yet. Take my advice and go back as fast as you can."
"I can't," she answered, dismayed.