"Tyrannical girl!" he said.
She looked down on him as he sat there, dressed and shaved, his clothes fitting rather loosely, his blue eyes hollow. How unspeakably dear he was. How hard to face emptiness....
"I'll put your mother in charge of you while I am gone," she said.
"Don't be too long," said Barnaby. "I'll miss you."
Unwillingly her heart sank. He would miss her. In that little while; in that scant half-hour—!
"Patient," she said, "you flatter."
And smiled at him bravely, and went away.
"I'll go to him immediately," said Lady Henrietta. She was writing furiously, despatching a counterblast to the aunt's interfering letter, which had contained more warnings than she had read aloud. It deserved six pages.
"How do you spell inseparable?" she asked, hardly interrupting the delightful business of administering a slap to one whose daughters-in-law were not wax and whose sons were wild. Distractedly she glanced at Susan.
"You look wan," she said. "I told them you were to have the motor with the hood off. Get all the air you can. Do you mind taking this old brooch into the town to be mended?" Her eyes twinkled as she unpinned it and put it in Susan's hand.