Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/102

  Bexley Sands Inn, you remember, but he added in a postscript that in case of accident he was not to be held responsible. Rather cryptic, I thought—at the time.”

“A little Commonburg, sir?” asked Walter. “It is a very fine ripe one, and we have some fresh water-cress.”

“‘Commonburg,’ Miss Tucker? No? Then bring the coffee, please.”

A desperate silence fell between them, they who had talked unendingly for days and evenings!

When Walter brought the tray with the coffee-pot and the two little cups, Appleton suddenly pushed his chair back, saying: “Let us take our coffee over by the window, shall we, and perhaps I may have a cigarette later? Don’t light the gas, waiter—we want to see the hills and the afterglow.”

There was no avoiding it; Appleton and the waiter conveyed Tommy helplessly over to a table commanding the view and the sunset, and it was the one on which the huge