She changed the subject.
“I don’t ask you to tell me about South Africa,” she said. “Because you told me the whole story as soon as I came into the room. But what are you going to do now? Settle down in the Church’s bosom at Welsley?”
There was no sarcasm in her voice.
“Oh—I’m going back to business in a few days.”
“You’ll run up and down, I suppose.”
“It’s too far, an hour and a half each way. I shall have to be in London.”
He spoke rather indecisively.
“I’m taking a fortnight’s holiday, and then we shall settle down.”
“I’ve been in Welsley,” said Mrs. Clarke. “It’s beautiful but, to me, stifling. It has an atmosphere which would soon dry up my mind. All the petals would curl up and go brown at the edges. I’m glad you’re not going to live there. But after South Africa you couldn’t.”
“I don’t know. I find it very attractive,” he said, instinctively on the defensive because of Rosamund, who had not been attacked. “The coziness and the peace of it are very delightful after all the—well, of course, it was a pretty stiff life in South Africa.”