Ransome had no sooner left Granville than Violet slipped out to the chemist's at the corner.
Ten o'clock struck, and the quarter and the half hour, and Violet had not appeared at St. Ann's Terrace.
Ransome proposed that the others should go on without him; he said he thought there must be something wrong, and that he had better go and see what had happened. They argued about it for a while, and finally Maudie and Fred Booty started. Winny refused flatly to go with them. She was convinced that they would meet Violet on the road to Southfields. She must have had a puncture, Winny said.
And there was no sign of her downstairs at Granville.
"Hark! What's that?" said Winny, listening at the foot of the stair. "Oh, Ranny!"
From the room above there came a low, half-stifled sound of sobbing and groaning.
In a few minutes he returned to Winny in the front sitting-room.
"What's the matter? Is she ill?" she said.
"No, I don't think so. She won't tell me. She's horribly upset about something."
"No; better not, Winny. Look here, she won't come to Richmond. She says we're to go without her."
"I don't know. Upon my word, I think we may as well. She'll be more upset if we don't go. She says she wants to be left to herself for _one_ day."
A sort of tremor passed over her eyes. They did not look at him; they looked beyond him, as if somewhere they saw something that frightened her.
"You mustn't leave her, Ranny," she said.
He laughed. "She doesn't want me. She's just told me so."
"Whether she wants you or not you've got to stay with her."
"I say, you needn't talk like that. To hear you any one would think I fair neglected her."
She bit her lip. Her eyes wandered in their troubled way. She looked like a thing held there under his eyes against its will and seeking some way of escape.
"I don't think you neglect her, Ranny," she said at last.
She turned. "I think I'm going for a little spin somewhere by myself. I shall come back in time for dinner. Then I shall go down to Wandsworth and fetch Baby."
"No, you won't. You'll stay with Violet," she said.
"My holiday's all right. Don't you worry."
She was out of the house and in the garden. Mechanically he wheeled her bicycle out into the road. He was utterly submissive to her will.