“Yes, my lady!” Mrs. Cloke ran and returned swiftly.
“Our land marches with Pardons for a mile on the south,” she explained, waving the full cup, “but one has quite enough to do with one's own people without poachin'. Still, if I'd known, I'd have sent Dora, of course. Have you seen her this afternoon, Mrs. Cloke? No? I wonder whether that girl did sprain her ankle. Thank you.” It was a formidable hunk of bread and bacon that Mrs. Cloke presented. “As I was sayin', Pardons is a scandal! Lettin' people die like dogs. There ought to be people there who do their duty. You've done yours, though there wasn't the faintest call upon you. Good night. Tell Dora, if she comes, I've gone on.”
She strode away, munching her crust, and Sophie reeled breathless into the parlour, to shake the shaking George.
“Why did you keep catching my eye behind the blind? Why didn't you come out and do your duty?”
“Because I should have burst. Did you see the mud on its cheek?” he said.
“Once. I daren't look again. Who is she?”
“God—a local deity then. Anyway, she's another of the things you're expected to know by instinct.”
Mrs. Cloke, shocked at their levity, told them that it was Lady Conant, wife of Sir Walter Conant, Baronet, a large landholder in the neighbourhood; and if not God; at least His visible Providence. George made her talk of that family for an hour.
“Laughter,” said Sophie afterward in their own room, “is the mark of the savage. Why couldn't you control your emotions? It's all real to her.”
“It's all real to me. That's my trouble,” he answered in an altered tone. “Anyway, it's real enough to mark time with. Don't you think so?”