Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/227

 little that of a hen that had mothered a duckling. Only once had he ever lost his temper and that was on the occasion when she suggested that the book must be nearly finished and that surely it would be in many volumes. At which Mr. Blundon told her that it was a monumental and erudite work and that she wouldn't understand it even when it was finished. Bessie wept a little, not because her feelings were hurt (she knew he was quite right about her understanding any book) but because the book had not been finished before the death of Mr. Winnery. He would have understood it, she said. He was a wonderful man and understood everything. She was very lonely without him. Life wasn't the same. Perhaps, she suggested tearfully, Mr. Blundon would like sometime to drive out in the victoria with her and the poodles.

But Mr. Blundon told her that he detested riding in victorias and that the motion made him seasick. His refusal filled her with disappointment because at the bottom of her proposal lay a crafty plan. She had hoped that one afternoon they would make an early start and that suddenly they would find themselves as if by accident in Bayswater before the Pot and Pie. She had pictured to herself the triumph of calling out Teena Bitts and Winterbottom and even old Mrs. Crumyss, if she was still alive, to witness the spectacle of herself with horses and coachman, poodles and Mr. Blundon, the cousin of a duke. She wanted to know what Teena Bitts would have to say now about her lack of character.

But being of a philosophical turn she abandoned the triumphal plan and pushed out into another di-