Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/32

Rh asked him if he played bridge. He did, of course, though he laughed long and merrily at himself that night for having fled from his own mother and sisters. At least he could have done the French châteaux this summer with them; while here he was, after three years of exile, seriously contemplating a tour of the cathedral towns once more with—some one else's mother!

Very early the next morning he sought out that mother and her daughter to say the few final things which would make it impossible for him to find himself touring those towns again. And every day of the succeeding six to Southampton he had told them bravely of the superior things he would do and particularly of the glory of "roughing England" free from women and—with ultimate particularity—free from the cathedral towns. So as he saw them on the train at Southampton for Winchester, he had bid them a very superior farewell. But when their carriage had disappeared, he had looked down at himself to 14