Chapter 3.V.
‘My wife,’ said Colonel Innes, ‘is looking extremely well.’
‘She seems so, indeed,’ Madeline replied.
‘She is delighted with “Two Gables”. Likes it better, she says, than any other house we could have got.’
‘What a good thing!’
‘It was a record trip for the Caledonia, thirteen days from Brindisi to Bombay. Was she telling you about the voyage?’
‘No,’ said Madeline impatiently, ‘she didn’t mention it. How shall I tell the men to put down the hood, please? A rickshaw is detestable with the hood up—stifling! Thanks. I beg your pardon. The Caledonia made a good run?’
‘Thirteen days. Wonderful weather, of course, which was luck for Violet. She is an atrocious sailor.’
Madeline fancied she heard repose and reassurance in his voice. Her thought cried, ‘It is not so bad as he expected!’ We can not be surprised that she failed to see in herself the alleviation of that first evening.
‘She has brought quantities of things for the house with her,’ Innes went on, ‘as well as three dachshund puppies,’ and he laughed. ‘Wouldn’t you like one? What can we do with three—and the terrier, and Brutus?’