“Upon my Sam,” said Ukridge, “it’s a little hard.”
I think he would have said more, but at this point a voice spoke with a sudden and awful abruptness from the interior of the cottage. It was a woman’s voice, a quiet, steely voice, a voice, it seemed to me, that suggested cold eyes, a beaky nose, and hair like gun-metal.
“Stanley!”
That was all it said, but it was enough. Ukridge’s eye met mine in a wild surmise. He seemed to shrink into his mackintosh like a snail surprised while eating lettuce.
“Stanley!”
“Yes, Aunt Julia?” quavered Ukridge.
“Come here. I wish to speak to you.”
“Yes, Aunt Julia.”
I sidled out into the road. Inside the cottage the yapping of the Pekingese had become quite hysterical. I found myself trotting, and then—though it was a warm day—running quite rapidly. I could have stayed if I had wanted to, but somehow I did not want to. Something seemed to tell me that on this holy domestic scene I should be an intruder.
What it was that gave me that impression I do not know—probably vision or the big, broad, flexible outlook.