"Good evening, Mr Carstairs," she gave him a polite bow.
"How is your mother?" he asked.
"Better, thank you." She hardly seemed inclined to stop.
"What was the matter?" he asked. He was rather at his wits' end for something to say to detain her.
"I don't know," she answered. She looked at him, he thought, with a little amusement. "We gipsies never give names to our complaints. It may have been appendicitis, or fever, or a cold. Mother took herb tea, and she's better now."
"I'm glad of that," he said and stuck.
She passed on into the post office.
"Well, I'm damned," he said to himself. He was beginning to lose his temper. He watched her purchase some stamps at the counter—her profile seemed even better than her full face; the contemplation of her beauty cast a spell over him, for once in his life Carstairs felt rather hopeless. She did not look like a servant in her best clothes, but like a lady in poor circumstances. He noticed the obsequious civilities of the clerk at the counter, and thought what a pitiful ass the fellow was. He stepped up to her again as she came out, a little blaze of anger in his eyes.
"Look here! What's the matter?" he asked.
"Nothing," she answered, gazing at him in cold surprise.