For in Alwynne's face astonishment had been succeeded by indignation. Elsbeth prepared herself resignedly to face a storm of protest, if not a blank refusal. To be arranged for as if she were a child--unconsulted--Clare--the school--the coaching--leaving Elsbeth alone--Dene--utter strangers--perfectly well--simply ridiculous. Elsbeth saw it all coming. "My dear Elsbeth! What a preposterous----" began Alwynne. Then the weakness of convalescence swamped her. She sank back in her chair. "Perhaps it will," said Alwynne wearily. "All right, Elsbeth! I'll go if you want me to. Anyway, I don't much care." CHAPTER XXIX A week later Alwynne was sitting in a diminutive go-cart drawn by a large pony, and driven by a large lady with a wide smile and bulgy knees, with which, as the little cart jolted over the stony road, she unconsciously nudged Alwynne, imparting an air of sly familiarity to her pleasant, formal talk. This, Alwynne supposed, was Alicia. She liked her, liked her fat kind face, her comfortable rotundity, and her sweet voice. She liked her cool disregard of her own comical appearance, wedged in among portmanteaux and Alwynne and a basket of market produce, with an old sun-hat tied bonnet-fashion to shade her eyes, and her scarf ends fluttering madly, as she thwacked and tugged at the iron-mouthed pony. She was more than middle-aged, a woman of flopping draperies and haphazard hookings, and scatter-brained grey locks, that had been a fringe in the days of fringes. She moved, as Alwynne noticed later, like a hurried cow, and tripped continually over her long skirts. Yet, in spite of her ramshackle exterior, she was not ridiculous. The good-men and stray children they encountered greeted her with obvious respect. Alwynne, comparing the keen eyes and their cheerful crowsfeet, with the chin, firm enough in its cushion of fat, guessed her the ruling spirit of the Dene household, and wondered why she had not married a vicar. But Alicia, though Alwynne listened politely to her flow of talk, and answered prettily when she must, did not long occupy her attention. She was in her own country again. She loved the country--woods, fields, hedges and lanes--as she loved no city or sea-town of them all. London, Paris, Rome--Swiss mountains or Italian lakes--she would have given them all for Kent and Hampshire and the Sussex Weald. But Clare would never hear of a country holiday. Alwynne took deep breaths of the clean, kindly air, and wondered to herself that she had taken the proposal of her holiday so dully. She had not realised that she was going into the country--she had not realised anything, except that she was tired, and that Elsbeth would not leave her alone. She had shrunk painfully from the idea of meeting strangers, from the exertion of accommodating herself to them. But this good air made one feel alive again.... She stared over the pony's ears at the gay spring landscape.