“O Lor’,” said Courtesy.
Mrs. Paul Rust decided to reach the truth by interrogating the gardener. She always tried to approach a mystery by the high-road, rightly considering that the high-road is the most untrodden way in these tortuous days.
“Come here,” she called to the gardener, when Courtesy disappeared to see if her patient was asleep.
“Is that young woman who foolishly jumped into the sea—your wife?” she asked.
The gardener had resisted hours of siege on the subject. He was tired. Besides he instinctively understood Mrs. Rust.
“In some ways she is,” he replied, after rather a blank pause.
“Good,” said Mrs. Rust.
“Is that young man who owns a little red hotel in the woods in Hampshire your son?” asked the gardener, suddenly face to face with an opportunity.
“In some ways he is,” replied Mrs. Rust inevitably, without a smile.
The gardener became more and more inspired. “Because if you are his mother, I am his friend, and you may be interested to know that I put your point of view clearly before him when I met him last. He told me that you were unwilling to treat his hotel as an investment, and I said, ‘Why should she?’ I said, ‘You may take it from me that she won’t.’”