For the moment with her the health motive reigned supreme. She was no longer a runaway wife, she was an invalid profiting by change of air. Nothing was going to happen; let the world stand still while she was happy for the first time in her life. Surely she had a right to a little happiness!
She stayed there until the one red-trunked fir tree, up there on the heights by Mortham Peel, caught and glowed in the sunset light, and the damp mists began to rise in their proportion from this enormous area of rank foliage that engendered them. The fisherman put up his rod and went home. The doves cooed in a continuous monotone. Mrs. Elles knew well enough by all these signs that it was getting late. As she loitered slowly home, she could hear on the other side of the high Park wall the noisy passage of char-à-bancs, and vans full of jovial people, whose hoarsely shouted refrain of “She’s a jolly good fellow!” testified to their appreciation of Mrs. Watson’s thirty pies and cheerful welcome. Peace was evidently restored, and Mr. Rivers would have had his dinner quietly and be done by the time she got back. She was not at all hungry; she would have a glass of milk and a sandwich in her room. She was a woman who habitually took strong coffee twice a day.
“How changed I am!” she thought.
The party of trippers had gone, silence reigned, but the open door of the meeting room, as she crossed the hall on her way in, showed a wild and hideous scene of tea-stained table-cloths and broken meats.
“An awful sight, isn’t it?” asked Mr. Rivers, who was standing—a dark shape filling up the space, at the door of his own room. Then he hesitated a little....
“Mrs. Watson tells me that I am to have the pleasure of your company to-night?”
His tone was absolutely courteous, but she failed to detect any very strong cordiality in it, as was of course natural.
“He thinks me an awful bore!” she thought, but what she said was “I thought you would have dined by this time.”
“Of course I have not,” he replied, raising his eyebrows, “but I believe dinner is just ready.”
He held the door of the sitting-room wide open for her with just the right gesture and the right attitude of courtly invitation.