"Oh, no. She's quite sensible, Betty is. She used to go in to the morning round because you get in cheaper before noon, and then she'd go bus-riding."
"Bus-riding. Where?"
"Oh, anywhere the fancy took her. Have another of these biscuits, Mr. Bain; they're fresh from the tin. She went to see the castle at Norton one day. Norton's the county town you know. Everyone imagines Larborough is because it's so big, but Norton's always been—"
"Did she not come home to lunch, then?"
"What? Oh, Betty. No, she'd have coffee lunch somewhere. We always have our real meal at night anyhow, you see, with Mr. Tilsit being out all day, so there was always a meal waiting when she came home. It's always been my pride to have a good nourishing sit-down meal ready for my—"
"What time would that be? Six?"
"No, Mr. Tilsit doesn't usually manage home before half-past seven."
"And I suppose Betty was home long before then?"
"Mostly she was. She was late once because she went to an afternoon show at the pictures, but Mr. Tilsit he created about it-though I'm sure he had no need to, what harm can you come to at the pictures? — and after that she was always home before him. When he was here, that is. She wasn't so careful when he was away."
So the girl had been her own mistress for a good fortnight. Free to come and go without question, and limited only by the amount of holiday money in her pocket. It was an innocent-sounding fortnight; and in the case of most girls of her age it undoubtedly would have been that. The cinema in the morning, or window gazing; a coffee lunch; a bus-ride into the country in the afternoon. A blissful holiday for an adolescent; the first taste of unsupervised freedom.