Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/146

134 “When V.V. gets going,” she remarked, “she makes things come alive.”

Dr. Martineau hated to be addressed suddenly by strange ladies. He started, and his face assumed the distressed politeness of the moon at its full. “Your friend,” he said, “interested in archæology?”

“Interested!” said the stouter lady. “Why! She’s a fiend at it. Ever since we came on Carnac.”

“You’ve visited Carnac?”

“That’s where the bug bit her.” said the stout lady with a note of querulous humour. “Directly V.V. set eyes on Carnac, she just turned against all her up-bringing. ‘Why wasn’t I told of this before?’ she said. ‘What’s Notre Dame to this? This is where we came from. This is the real starting point of the Mayflower. Belinda,’ she said, ‘we’ve got to see all we can of this sort of thing before we go back to America. They’ve been keeping this from us.’ And that’s why we’re here right now instead of being shopping in Paris or London like decent American women.”

The younger lady looked down on her companion with something of the calm expert attention that a plumber gives to a tap that is misbehaving, and like a plumber refrained from precipitate action. She stood with the backs of her hands resting on her hips.

“Well,” she said slowly, giving most of the re-