“I don’t understand you.”
“I will try and explain myself a little better. Geoffrey said your position here depended on my asking for you at the door (as he would have asked for you if he had come) in the character of your husband.”
“He had no right to say that.”
“No right? After what you have told me of the landlady, just think what might have happened if he had not said it! I haven’t had much experience myself of these things. But—allow me to ask—wouldn’t it have been a little awkward (at my age) if I had come here and inquired for you as a friend? Don’t you think, in that case, the landlady might have made some additional difficulty about letting you have the rooms?”
It was beyond dispute that the landlady would have refused to let the rooms at all. It was equally plain that the deception which Arnold had practiced on the people of the inn was a deception which Anne had herself rendered necessary, in her own interests. She was not to blame; it was clearly impossible for her to have foreseen such an event as Geoffrey’s departure for London. Still, she felt an uneasy sense of responsibility—a vague dread of what might happen next. She sat nervously twisting her handkerchief in her lap, and made no answer.
“Don’t suppose I object to this little stratagem,” Arnold went on. “I am serving my old friend, and I am helping the lady who is soon to be his wife.”
Anne rose abruptly to her feet, and amazed him by a very unexpected question.
“Mr. Brinkworth,” she said, “forgive me the rudeness of something I am about to say to you. When are you going away?”
Arnold burst out laughing.
“When I am quite sure I can do nothing more to assist you,” he answered.