She had, of course, a small private exchequer of her own, amounting usually to only a few pence, of which the Major knew nothing.

This did not strike her as at all unfair; she only wondered gently sometimes at masculine innocence in not recognizing that such an arrangement was perfectly certain.

She got into conversation with some elder ladies, who also had stepped out for refreshment, and had occasion, at a certain point, to lay her wedding-ring on the bar-counter for exhibition.

So it was not until a little after twelve that she remembered the time and fled.

She was not expecting her men home to dinner; in fact, she had wrapped up provisions for them in fragments of the Major's _Sporting Times_ before they had left; but it was safer to be at home.