Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/125

Rh “I had to take a letter to Highclose to Mrs. Tempest—from my mother, concerning a bazaar in process at the church. “I will bring Leslie back with me,” said I to myself.

The night was black and hateful. The lamps by the road from Eberwich ended at Nethermere; their yellow blur on the water made the cold, wet inferno of the night more ugly.

Leslie and Marie were both in the library—half a library, half a business office; used also as a lounge room, being cosy. Leslie lay in a great armchair by the fire, immune among clouds of blue smoke. Marie was perched on the steps, a great volume on her knee. Leslie got up in his cloud, shook hands, greeted me curtly, and vanished again. Marie smiled me a quaint, vexed smile, saying:

“Oh, Cyril, I’m so glad you’ve come. I’m so worried, and Leslie says he’s not a pastry cook, though I’m sure I don’t want him to be one, only he need not be a bear.”

“What’s the matter?”

She frowned, gave the big volume a little smack and said:

“Why, I do so much want to make some of those Spanish tartlets of your mother’s that are so delicious, and of course Mabel knows nothing of them, and they’re not in my cookery book, and I’ve looked through page upon page of the encyclopedia, right through ‘Spain,’ and there’s nothing yet, and there are fifty pages more, and Leslie won’t help me, though I’ve got a headache, because he’s frabous about something.” She looked at me in comical despair.