“Oh yes; I was out a good deal.”
So far truth carried her, but nervousness made her add an unnecessary gloss, which was the falsest of falsehoods—in implication, at least—
“I knew that you would wish me to take some exercise.”
“H’m! how far did you go? I dare say not farther than the houses. I know that the stove house is the kind of atmosphere you really like.”
Camilla was in wonderfully good tune; there was even an attempt at genial raillery in her tone.
“Oh, but I did. I went much further.”
Truth again reappeared. It was as well to give that seldom-invoked goddess a look-in now and then.
“To the summer-house?”
“Further still.”
“You did not, I am sure, risk those ridiculous little shoes of yours in the wet grass of the park?”