"I couldn't bear to think of you p'raps going to bed and feeling that I was harbouring ill thoughts towards you, not realising that now I've got Jesus I'll forgive anything that anybody does against me!" His voice wallowed rhapsodically. "So Poppy and I just nipped in here instead of going straight back to the Colony."
Poppy wriggled her body about in her clothes in an agony of desire to disassociate herself from him, from the situation.
"That was good of you," said Richard.
"And now"—the whistling tone came back in his speech—"I want to tell mother!"
"You can't do that. She isn't in."
"What, weren't you all out together? Didn't she come home with you?"
"No."
"Then, love o' goodness, where is she at this time of night?"
"Down on the marshes," said Richard casually. "She had a headache. She thought a walk in the night air would do her good." Slowly and deliberately he smoothed out his gauntlets and laid them down on the table.
"Oh," murmured Roger, and was silent until Richard put out his hand and straightened the gloves, making them lie parallel with the grain of the wood. Then suddenly he ran round the table and looked up into his brother's face. "Here! What's the matter with mother?"