Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/82

 the feeling that any rancour remained. . . You understand. It is always worth a little inconvenience to be gracious. . . And she had been speaking quite wickedly about me. ..

We lunched that day at Norton and had arranged to sleep at Rugely. I need hardly say that, when I suggested a détour to Brackenbury—an extra forty miles at most—, Kathleen discovered that she was tired out and Captain Laughton trumped up his usual excuse that he didn’t know my brother and disliked “butting in” on strangers. . . Ridiculous! I’ve never met a man more completely self-possessed. . . For once I broke my rule and said that they might go on by themselves and order rooms for us in Rugely. They would leave a note for us at the General Post Office to say where we should meet them.

“Drive carefully!,” Captain Laughton called out, as we started from Norton. “It will be the devil and all, if anything happens to you.”

I did not understand this new-born solicitude until my boy Will undertook to enlighten me. And then I saw that perhaps I had been really imprudent. After a fortnight of heart-breaking discretion, I had allowed these two feather-brained creatures to drive off alone. ..