"Movable! Huh! That's good. We had window-boxes once. Mrs. Laverty over the way had a gate. Mrs. Biddows had two fine wooden clothes posts and eighteen yards of clothes rope. They all thought they weren't movable. You leave your car there for ten minutes you'll be lucky to find the chassis!"
So Robert got obediently into the car, and drove down to the grocer's. And as he drove he remembered something, and the memory puzzled him. This was where Betty Kane had been so happy. This rather dreary, rather grimy street; one of a warren of streets very like itself. So happy that she had written to say that she was staying on for the rest of her holidays.
What had she found here that was so desirable?
He was still wondering as he walked into the grocer's and prepared to spot Mrs. Tilsit among the morning customers. But there was no need for any guesswork. There was only one woman in the shop, and one glance at the grocer's patient face and the cardboard packet in the woman's either hand, made it plain that she was Mrs. Tilsit.
"Can I get you something, sir," the grocer said detaching himself for a moment from the woman's ponderings-it wasn't wheat flakes this morning, it was powdered soap-and moving towards Robert.
"No, thank you," Robert said. "I am just waiting for this lady."
"For me?" the woman said. "If it's the gas, then—"
Robert said hastily that he wasn't the gas.
"I have a vacuum cleaner, and it's going fine," she offered, and prepared to go back to her problem.
Robert said that he had his car outside and would wait until she had finished, and was beating a hasty retreat; but she said: "A car! Oh. Well, you can drive me back, can't you, and save me carrying all those things. How much, Mr. Carr, please?"