When she had written the letter and sent it off she began to be curiously depressed, and she wandered through the flat, conscious at last of just how much she had really missed Peggy's laughter, her gaiety, and her swift young step. The week before her loomed longer than all the time she had been away.
That afternoon she told Ayling her news, but it was not until she had finished telling him that she remembered that he, too, would be going away. She hadn't known until then how much his being there had meant.
"I don't know," she said, "how I shall put in the week! After all, I've been missing her more than I knew."
It occurred to Ayling that, standing there before him with Lady McCrae's letter, which she had been showing him, in her hand, she was exactly like a little girl who was going to be left all alone.
The idea came to him suddenly. "Look here, Bessie; come down to Homebury St. Mary with me! It would do you no end of good."
The quality of their friendship was clear in the simplicity with which he made the suggestion, and the absence of self-consciousness with which she heard it made.
"Then come along. You've nothing to keep you here; the country's just what you need."
She did not answer at once, but stood looking away from him, a little frown between her eyes. She was thinking how absurd it would be to object, and how equally absurd it seemed to say yes. It _was_ so nice to have some one think of her as he thought of himself, simply, normally, humanly, as Dick Ayling seemed to have thought of her from the first.
Then abruptly she accepted his simplification. "I'll go," she said.
"Good! I'll telephone through for a room for you.... When can you be ready?" he asked.
"To-day--this afternoon. Let's get away before I discover all the reasons to prevent! I won't bother about a lot of luggage--my big bag will do."
All at once, like two children, they became immensely exhilarated at the prospect before them--a week's holiday!
He went to the telephone and presently reported: "There's a train at two-forty. Can you make it by then?"
She looked at the clock on the mantel. "We'll make it," she said.
He was getting into his coat. "I'll go on to the club, get my things together, and come back for you at two-fifteen, then."