"All that tea for one and threepence!" he said, laughing, when he joined her. "Wonderful, isn't it?"
She laughed too. She got in beside him and tucked the rug round her warmly.
"How long will it take to get home?" she asked. She seemed all at once conscious of the growing dusk, conscious, too, of anxiety to get back to Gladys. She was a little afraid of this man, though she would not admit it even to herself.
"We ought to be home in an hour," he said. He started the engine.
The car ran smoothly for a mile or two. Christine began to feel sleepy. Kettering did not talk much, and the fresh evening air on her face was soothing and pleasant. She closed her eyes.
Presently when Kettering spoke to her he got no answer; he turned a little in his seat and looked down at her, but her head was drooping forward and he could not see her face.
"Christine." He spoke her name sharply, then suddenly he smiled; she was asleep.
He moved so that her head rested against his arm; he slowed the car down a little.
Kettering was not a young man, his fortieth birthday had been several years a thing of the past, but all his life afterwards he looked back on that drive home to Upton House as the happiest hour he had ever known, with Christine's little head resting on his arm and the grey twilight all about them. When they were half a mile from home he roused her gently. She sat up with a start, rubbing sleepy eyes.
"Oh! where are we?" He laid his hand on hers for a moment.