"Oh, I say—don't go on like that. Don't make it cuts."
"Thompson—your cousin—is in the cemetery, if you wish to call on him. He has been there a long time—waiting for you;" and Marsden laughed. "The sexton will tell you where to find him.... Go and plant your cabbages out there. We don't want 'em here."
He returned to the luncheon table in the highest good-humour.
"There, old girl, I've ridded you of that nuisance. You won't be bothered with him any more."
Mrs. Marsden could not answer. She could not even raise her eyes from the table-cloth. But when her husband offered to give her a rare afternoon treat by taking her for a run in his small two-seated car, she looked up; and, meekly thanking him, accepted the invitation.
As the car carried them slowly through the market-place, neatly threading its way among laden carts and emptied stalls, she saw cousin Gordon standing, rueful and disconsolate, outside the humble tavern at which it was the custom of the lesser sort of farmers to dine together on market-day. Had Gordon dined, or had anger and resentment deprived him of appetite and spared his ill-filled purse?
She would not think of it. She turned, and watched her husband's face. It was hard as granite while with concentrated attention he manipulated the steering wheel, moved a lever, or sounded his brazen-tongued horn—the signal of danger to anyone who refused to get out of his road.
Almost immediately, they were in the open country, whirling past bare fields and leafless copses, leaping fiercely at each hill that opposed them, and swooping with a shrill, buzzing triumph down the long slopes of the valleys.
"Now we are travelling," said Marsden joyously.