"Mrs Fane has already left, I believe. I suppose you will join her
later."
"I think not. She has gone abroad. I shall remain in England."
Delphine gave a short, irritable laugh. I had annoyed her, and
child-like, she wished to hit back.
"Abroad, and England! That's all the address we are vouchsafed. Mrs
Fane and Miss Wastneys evidently wish to shake off the dust of this
village as soon as they drive away from `Pastimes'. Even if we wish to
communicate with them, we shall not be able to do it."
"Oh, yes, Delphine, you will," I contradicted. "I have told you that
letters will always reach us through our lawyers."
"Lawyers!" she repeated eloquently. "As if one could send ordinary
letters in a roundabout way like that! I wouldn't dare to write through
a lawyer, unless it were a matter of life and death. I must say,
Evelyn, you are queer! When we have got to know each other so well,
too!"
"You thought it `queer' that Charmion and I should live here together;
and now you think it `queer' when we go away. Isn't that a little
unreasonable?"
"It is `queer' to be so mysterious about where you are going. People
ordinarily--"
"Very well, then! We are _not_ ordinary. Let us leave it at that. It
is much more interesting to be mysterious. Perhaps we are really two
authors of world-wide fame, who but ourselves in the country for a short
rest now and then between our dazzling spells of industry."
Delphine gaped, hesitated, then laughed complacently.
"Oh, well, Mrs Fane is the sort of person who might be _anything_. But
not you, Evelyn; certainly not you! You are not--"
"What?"
"Clever enough!" she cried bluntly. The next minute, with one of the
swift, child-like impulses which made her so lovable, she threw her arms
round my neck and kissed me vehemently. "But you are good--good and
kind. That's better than all the cleverness. Forgive me, Evelyn; I'm a
rude, bad-tempered thing. Kiss and be friends!"
Ralph Maplestone seized his hat and marched out of the room.