I sent the motor back to Lady
Grove, and still wearing my fur coat--for the January night was damp and
bitterly cold--walked to Bedley Corner. I found the lane to the back of
the Dower House without any difficulty, and was at the door in the wall
with ten minutes to spare. I lit a cigar and fell to walking up and
down. This queer flavour of intrigue, this nocturnal garden-door
business, had taken me by surprise and changed my mental altitudes.
I was startled out of my egotistical pose and thinking intently of
Beatrice, of that elfin quality in her that always pleased me, that
always took me by surprise, that had made her for example so instantly
conceive this meeting.
She came within a minute of midnight; the door opened softly and she
appeared, a short, grey figure in a motor-coat of sheepskin, bareheaded
to the cold drizzle. She flitted up to me, and her eyes were shadows in
her dusky face.
"Why are you going to West Africa?" she asked at once.
"Business crisis. I have to go."
"You're not going--? You're coming back?"
"Three or four months," I said, "at most.
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