The passage beyond was dark. Just for a moment a flicker of light showed that the door on the right was ajar. The flicker came from the room behind the door. Someone could have used a lighter, or struck a match, or switched on an electric torch. Sally put out a hand and clutched at David’s arm, and before anything else could happen someone laughed where the flicker had been. No one who had heard that laugh before could possibly mistake it. It belonged to Moira Herne, and at the thought of Moira finding her here with David in the dark Sally was shaken with a fierce anger. She had known Moira long enough to know exactly what she would say and what sort of story she would make of it. It served her right for ever coming down to Merefields, but there is no consolation in knowing that you have asked for trouble and tumbled right into the middle of it. At the moment the one bright spot was that David was having the sense to hold his tongue. It would have been quite dreadfully like him to call out to Moira and let them in for whatever was coming. Mercifully, he just stood there and neither said nor did anything at all.

Sally pushed the kitchen door to screen them, and she pulled on David’s arm to get him to come back across the kitchen and through the scullery and out by the back door. If they could get clear away. She might have known that it wouldn’t be any good. David was going to be the sort of husband who demands loudly why he is being pinched or his foot trodden on, when you are trying to give him a hint. He now said in what he doubtless supposed to be a whisper,

“Why are you pulling me?”

Sally said, “Ssh!” and the door on the right of the passage swung in. They could not see anything, but they could hear. And first, along there at the end of the passage, there was the swing of the door and someone coming through, and the someone was Moira Herne. No one could mistake that drawling voice. It was Moira, and she stopped in the open doorway and spoke to someone behind her in the dark front room. It must have been quite dark there, because the blinds were down as Sally had seen them when she came up the path. And Moira said,

“You’re sure it will come tomorrow- absolutely sure? Because I won’t go on until it does-I can tell you that.”

There was the murmur of a man’s voice, but nothing to tell who the man might be.

Moira stood where she was and said,

“Well, I’m just telling you-that’s all. As to David, I’ve told you you needn’t worry. I can fix it all right. I’ll just tell him this place isn’t suitable. Come along, or I’ll be late!”

She went out of the front door, and there was another footstep that followed her. It was a man’s step. They didn’t see him, they didn’t hear him speak. They heard Moira go out, they heard him follow her, and they heard the front door shut.

Sally and David walked up the drive in silence, as they had stood in silence on the flagged path to the lodge and heard Moira and the man who was with her turn the other way and go down to the gate and out into the lane beyond. There must have been a car waiting there, for after a minute or two they could hear the purr of the engine and the sound of it dying away.

They did not move for quite a while after that. Moira might have been just seeing the man off and coming back herself. They stood in the dripping garden and waited to see whether she would come. It was strange to stand so close together and have nothing to say.

When quite a long time had passed David said, “She’s gone with him-she won’t come now,” and they went out of the little creaking gate and shut it behind them, and so on and up the drive. It wasn’t until they could see the lights of the house that Sally said,

“You never finished what you were saying back there in the lodge, David.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t. You said I hadn’t any business to say what I was saying.”

He said in his frowning voice, “I haven’t the slightest idea what you were saying.”

Sally laughed.

“Darling, you know perfectly well. And you should stick to telling the truth, because you don’t tell at all a convincing lie. I said how Moira would love me if I came and chaperoned her sittings. And you said, ‘Do you want her to love you?’ and I said, ‘Don’t you?’ And then you nearly broke my wrist and said something about my knowing. Well, now I should like to be told what it is I’m supposed to know.”

There was one of those silences. Sally wasn’t going to break it, and David wasn’t going to break it, so where did you go from there?

Sally came up close and slipped a hand inside his arm. It didn’t get any encouragement, but at least it didn’t get pushed away. So far so good, but at any moment there might be an explosion. There was a tingling feeling from her fingertips up to her shoulder. She rubbed her cheek against the rough stuff of his sleeve and said,

“David, tell me-”

She heard him take a deep angry breath. The arm which she had been holding was jerked away from her touch. Her own arm was taken and gripped.

“You know perfectly well what I started to say, and I’m not saying it! And you know why! When I’m in a position to say it, it will be said, but it won’t be said before!”

Sally wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, and she wanted quite dreadfully to slap his face just as hard as she could. The trouble about slapping is that to be at all satisfactory it has to be spontaneous, because the minute you begin to think about it the civilized bit of you gets up and won’t let you do it. Well, if you’ve got to be civilized you might as well take the smooth with the rough. She gave a nice little modern laugh, and said,

“Darling, how fierce you are! And of course you don’t know it, but you’re hurting me. You know, we really shall have to hurry, or we shan’t have time to change, and Elaine will be in a fuss.”

Chapter 28

MISS BRAY was certainly in a fuss, but it wasn’t about them. Lucius Bellingdon had rung up to say that his car had broken down at Emberley, which was fifteen miles away, and he and Annabel were therefore going to be late.

“And he said not to wait supper, because they would have something there, and of course I said it would be quite all right whenever they came, because with everyone out on Sunday evening we always do have cold. Most inconvenient, but there it is. But he just said, ‘We’re dining here,’ and rang off. What I can’t understand is why the car should have broken down.”

Wilfrid said in his light malicious voice,

“My dear Miss Bray, what did you expect it to do? It’s the oldest dodge in the world. All the best cars are trained to oblige.”

Elaine looked at him, first puzzled and then cross.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. But they are bound to be frightfully late, and if Lucius says not to wait, we had better go in.”

Moira walked in just as they were sitting down. She had been home long enough to change into a pale green housecoat and to make up her face. When she heard that Lucius and Annabel had been stuck at Emberley she lifted her eyebrows and remarked that they were probably bearing up. After which she slid into her place, addressed David as “My sweet,” and said that cold food was foul, and too early-Victorian to be expected to eat it on Sunday evening, but as there wasn’t anything else, he could give her some chicken-salad. As he complied he was considering that she must certainly have taken a lift in the car which they had heard driving away.

Aware of his silent gaze, she met it with her own light stare and said,

“Well, what is it? I’ll give you a penny for your thoughts-tuppence if they’re worth it.”

They were waiting on themselves. He brought round her plate of salad and set it down.

“I don’t think they are. I was just wondering how long it took you to dress.”