"I seem to be hopelessly out of fashion because I don"t play golf,"
Marie said when she and Feathers were alone again. "I think I am beginning to hate the very name of it."
"You must let me teach you to play."
Marie sighed and looked out of the window to the narrow country road. "I think I"m too tired to learn anything," she said despondently.
Feathers frowned; he thought she looked very frail, and in spite of his words he could not picture her swinging a club and ploughing through all weathers as Dorothy Webber had done in Scotland.
"You"ve no right to be tired," he said angrily. "A child like you!"
She looked up, the ready tears coming to her eyes.
"Do you think I"m such a child?" she asked. "That"s what Chris always says--a kid, he calls me! And yet I don"t feel so very young, you know."
"I should like to be as young," Feathers said.
She leaned her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Thirty-eight next birthday--as you insist."
She did not seem surprised.
"I wonder what I shall be like when I"m thirty-eight?" she hazarded.
Feathers did not answer; he was doing a rapid calculation in his mind; he knew that she, nineteen now, was nineteen years his junior. That meant that when she was thirty-six he would be fifty-five!
His mouth twisted into a grim smile. Life was a queer thing. He wondered what he would have said had anyone told him three months ago that he would be lunching here with Christopher"s wife--quite contentedly.
There were voices in the cobble-stoned yard outside, and Marie looked towards the window.
"Two people coming in," she said. "I suppose that"s who the other places are laid for." She indicated the further end of the table.
"The two people Mrs. Costin mentioned, I suppose," Feathers said.
"Won"t you have some more cream? I always think ..." he broke off as the door opened and Mrs. Heriot walked into the room.
There was a moment of blank surprise, then he rose to his feet.
"The world is a small place; how do you do?" he said calmly.
Mrs. Heriot found her voice, of which sheer astonishment had robbed her; she broke out volubly.
"Mr. Dakers, of all people! And Mrs. Lawless too! Who on earth would have dreamed of meeting you here? That must be your car in the yard!"
She shook hands with Marie. "The world is a small place, isn"t it?"
"Are you staying here?" Marie asked. She did not care in the least, but it was something to say.
"Yes--with my sister. It"s dull, but at week-ends we have quite a good time. You must come down," she added, turning to Feathers. "And how is Chris?"
"I left him in Scotland--golfing," Feathers said. "He is coming up to town this week."
"Really! How delightful! Bring him down, and we"ll have a foursome.
You don"t play, do you, Mrs. Lawless? What a pity! Don"t you care for the game?"
"I"ve never played."
"Well, you must begin. Get Mr. Dakers to teach you." She turned as her sister entered. "Lena, I"ve just run into two friends. Isn"t it queer? May I introduce my sister, Mrs. Rendle--Mrs. Lawless, and Mr. Dakers."
Mrs. Rendle looked Marie up and down critically and nodded. She was very like her sister, only older and less smart.
"You"ve just finished lunch, I see," Mrs. Heriot said. "What a pity! We might have all had it together."
"We"re not staying--we"re going on," Feathers said hurriedly. "I"m taking Mrs. Lawless down to see some friends at Wendover."
"Really! How perfectly delightful!" She drew Feathers a little away from her sister and Marie. "Has she been ill again?" she asked, with a.s.sumed concern. "I never saw anyone age as she has."
"Really!" Feathers looked at her stonily. "Mrs. Lawless looks just the same to me." He had always hated Mrs. Heriot and he hated her now more than ever. He made some pretext and went out to the car.
"Be sure to tell Chris that we are here," Mrs. Heriot said to Marie. "It"s a nine hole course, but quite good! Send him down for a week-end."
"I won"t forget," Marie promised.
She was thankful when Feathers came to say it was time to start.
She gave a little sigh of relief as they drove away.
Feathers glanced down at her sympathetically.
"Cat!" he said eloquently.
"I am afraid I do rather hate her," Marie faltered.
"The sister is a give-away," Feathers said. "One can see now what Mrs. Heriot will be like in another ten years."
Marie could not help laughing.
"Oh, but how unkind!" she said. A little mischievous sparkle lit her brown eyes. "And we"re not really going to see any friends at Wendover, are we?"
"No," he laughed with her. "I"d tell that woman anything," he said, with a sort of savagery.
They stopped again for tea at a cottage, and the woman who owned it gave Marie a big bunch of flowers to carry away.
"Now I really took as if I"ve been for a day in the country," she said laughingly to Feathers. "People always trail home with bunches of flowers, don"t they?"
"I suppose they do." He touched the bunch lying in her lap. "May I have one?"
"Of course!" She picked them up quickly. "Which one?"