"
V
But my story has made a jump from June to October, and during that time
my relations with Beatrice and the countryside that was her setting had
developed in many directions. She came and went, moving in an orbit
for which I had no data, going to London and Paris, into Wales and
Northampton, while her stepmother, on some independent system of her
own, also vanished and recurred intermittently. At home they obeyed the
rule of an inflexible old maid, Charlotte, and Beatrice exercised
all the rights of proprietorship in Carnaby's extensive stables. Her
interest in me was from the first undisguised. She found her way to my
worksheds and developed rapidly, in spite of the sincere discouragement
of Cothope, into a keen amateur of aeronautics. She would come sometimes
in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes afoot with an
Irish terrier, sometimes riding. She would come for three or four days
every day, vanish for a fortnight or three weeks, return.
It was not long before I came to look for her. From the first I
found her immensely interesting.
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