The Ri—te O voice of the Hopscotch.
“Come on, Sabre, my boy! Come on!
Come on!”
He got into the cab. Major Millet had taken the
seat next Mabel. “Ri—te O,
Cabby!” the Hopscotch hailed.
As the horse turned with the staggering motions proper
to its burden of years and infirmity, Mabel inquired,
“What was Lady Tybar talking to you about all
that time?”
He said, “Oh, just saying good-by.”
But he was thinking, “That’s a fourth
question: Why did you say, ’Oh, Marko,
do write to me’? Or was that the answer
to the other questions, although I never asked them?”
He did not write to her. But in October a ridiculous
incident impelled afresh the urgent desire to ask
her the questions: an incident no less absurd
than the fact that in October Low Jinks knocked her
knee.
Mabel spent two months of the summer on visits to
friends. In August she was with her own people
on their annual holiday at Buxton. There Sabre,
who had a fortnight, joined her. It happened to
be the fortnight of the croquet tournament, and it
happened that Major Millet was also in Buxton.
Curiously enough he had also been at Bournemouth, whence
Mabel had just come from cousins, and they had played
much croquet there together. It was projected
as great fun to enter the Buxton tournament in partnership,
and Sabre did not see a great deal of Mabel.
It was late September when they resumed life together
at Penny Green. In their absence the light railway
linking up the Garden Home with Tidborough and Chovensbury
had been opened with enormous excitement and celebration;
and Mabel became at once immersed in paying calls and
joining the activities of the new and intensely active
community.
Then Low Jinks knocked her knee.
The knee swelled and for two days Low Jinks had to
keep her leg on a chair. It greatly annoyed Mabel
to see Low Jinks sitting in the kitchen with her leg
“stuck out on a chair.” She told Sabre
it was extraordinary how “that class of person”
always got in such a horrible state from the most
ridiculous trifles. “I suppose I knock my
knee a dozen times a week, but my knee doesn’t
swell up and get disgusting. You’re always
reading in the paper about common people getting stung
by wasps, or getting a scratch from a nail, and dying
the next day. They must be in a horrible state.
It always makes me feel quite sick.”
Sabre laughed. “Well, I expect poor old
Low Jinks feels pretty sick too.”
“She enjoys it.”
“What, sitting there with a knee like a muffin?
I had a look at her just now. Don’t you
think she might have one of those magazines to read?
She looks pretty sorry for herself.”
Signs of “flying up.” “You
haven’t given her a magazine, have you?”
“No—I haven’t. But I told
her I would after dinner.”
“If you don’t mind you won’t.
Rebecca has plenty to occupy her time. She can
perfectly well clean the silver and things like that,
and she has her sewing. She has upset the house
quite enough with her leg stuck out on a chair all
day without reading magazines.”
