"
"Baths and aqueducts," Miss Grammont compared. "Rome of the Empire comes
nearest to it...."
As soon as tea was over, Dr. Martineau realized, they meant to walk
round and about Salisbury. He foresaw that walk with the utmost
clearness. In front and keeping just a little beyond the range of his
intervention, Sir Richmond would go with Miss Grammont; he himself and
Miss Seyffert would bring up the rear. "If I do," he muttered, "I'll be
damned!" an unusually strong expression for him.
"You said--?" asked Miss Seyffert.
"That I have some writing to do--before the post goes," said the doctor
brightly.
"Oh! come and see the cathedral!" cried Sir Richmond with ill-concealed
dismay. He was, if one may put it in such a fashion, not looking at Miss
Seyffert in the directest fashion when he said this.
"I'm afraid," said the doctor mulishly. "Impossible."
(With the unspoken addition of, "You try her for a bit.")
Miss Grammont stood up. Everybody stood up. "We can go first to look
for shops," she said. "There's those things you want to buy, Belinda;
a fountain pen and the little books. We can all go together as far as
that. And while you are shopping, if you wouldn't mind getting one or
two things for me...."
It became clear to Dr.
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