"What I am thinking is, who will give us a certificate that we have been reasonably engaged when we return home," remarked Rosa, when they were rising from the table--he did not offer them cigarettes.
"Do you really think it possible that your people will be uneasy?" said he, with some concern in his voice. "It's still raining. Will they not be certain that you took shelter somewhere? If there's any doubt, I'll send a message by my motor."
"You have brought a motor, and yet you looked for ghosts and things?" said Priscilla.
"I came from Barwellstone in it this morning. A nice run. I tried a railway guide for trains, and found that with luck I could do the journey in eight hours."
"And you did it in twenty minutes by motor?"
"Twenty-five, in addition to three hours. It's just ninety-two miles. So this is the drawing-room? Very nice, I'm sure."
They had walked across the hall and had passed through a very fine mahogany door into another big square room, with exquisite plaster decorations on the walls and ceiling and mantelpieces, of which there were two. The eighteenth century furniture was mahogany and upholstered in faded red damask. The chairs were all uncovered, though the curtains remained tied up in such a way as caused each to reproduce with extraordinary clearness the figure of Mrs. Pearce. The transparent cabinets all round the room were filled with specimens of the art of Josiah Wedgwood--blue and green and buff and black--beautiful things.
"This is the Wedgwood drawing-room," said Priscilla. "It is considered one of the most perfect things of its kind in the country."
"Why the Wedgwood room? Was there a Mr. Wedgwood who planned it?" asked the owner.
"There was a Mr. Wedgwood who supplied the china," said Priscilla.
"Local--a local man, I suppose--Framsby, or is it Southam?"
"Oh, no, Wedgwood was not a local man by any means," replied Priscilla, wondering in what circles this young man had spent the earlier years of his life that he had never heard of Wedgwood.
"Anyhow, it's quite nice to look at; and here comes the coffee," said he. "It's a queer room--gives even an ignorant chap like me a feeling that it's all right--furnished throughout, and not on the hire-purchase system."