‘Would you care to go over the Folly, ma’am?’ he inquired. ‘It’s quite a curiosity. Visitors come out from London to see it.’
Laura was not going to be fubbed off like this. He might pretend not to recognise her, but she would jog his memory.
‘So you are a grave-keeper as well as a gamekeeper?’
‘The Council employ me to cut the bushes,’ he answered.
‘O Satan!’ she exclaimed, hurt by his equivocations. ‘Do you always hide?’
With the gesture of a man who can never hold out against women, he yielded and sat down beside her on the grass.
Laura felt a momentary embarrassment. She had long wished for a reasonable conversation with her Master, but now that her wish seemed about to be granted, she felt rather at a loss for an opening. At last she observed:
‘Titus has gone.’
‘Indeed? Isn’t that rather sudden? It was only this afternoon that I met him.’
‘Yes, I saw you meeting him. At least, I saw him meeting you.’