Part 5 (1/2)

'I feel all the time, somehow, as if he were calling me by my Christian name without an introduction, or as if he wanted me to exchange hats with him,' she said. 'He's so fearfully familiar with his readers.'

'But you think he keeps at a respectful distance from his characters?

However--why worry about books at all, Mrs Ottley? Flowers, lilies of the field, and so forth, don't toil or spin; why should they belong to libraries? I don't think you ever ought to read--except perhaps sometimes a little poetry, or romance.... You see, that is what you are, rather, isn't it?'

'Don't you care for books?' she answered, ignoring the compliment. 'I should have thought you loved them, and knew everything about them. I'm not sure that I know.'

'You know quite enough, believe me,' he answered earnestly. 'Oh, don't be cultured--don't talk about Lloyd George! Don't take an intelligent interest in the subjects of the day!'

'All right; I'll try not.'

She turned with a laugh to Captain Willis, who seemed very depressed.

'I say, you know,' he said complainingly, 'this is all very well. It's all very well no doubt. But I only ask one thing--just one. Is this cricket? I merely ask, you know. Just that--is it cricket; what?'

'It isn't meant to be. What's the matter?'

'Why, I'm simply fed up and broken-hearted, you know. Hardly two words have I had with you tonight, Mrs Ottley.... I suppose that chap's awfully amusing, what? I'm not amusing.... I know that.'

'Oh, don't say that. Indeed you are.' she consoled him.

'Am I though?'

'Well, you amuse _me_!'

'Right!' He laughed cheerily. He always filled up pauses with a laugh.

CHAPTER V

The Surprise

Certainly Mrs Mitch.e.l.l on one side and Captain Willis on the other had suffered neglect. But they seemed to become hardened to it towards the end of dinner....

'I have a boy, too,' Aylmer remarked irrelevantly, 'rather a nice chap.

Just ten.'

Though only by the merest, slightest movement of an eyelash Edith could not avoid showing her surprise. No-one ever had less the air of a married man. Also, she was quite ridiculously disappointed. One can't say why, but one doesn't talk to a married man quite in the same way or so frankly as to a bachelor--if one is a married woman. She did not ask about his wife, but said:

'Fancy! Boys are rather nice things to have about, aren't they?'

She was looking round the table, trying to divine which was Mrs Aylmer Ross. No, she wasn't there. Edith felt sure of it. It was an unaccountable satisfaction.

'Yes; he's all right. And now give me a detailed description of _your_ children.'

'I can't. I never could talk about them.'

'I see.... I should like to see them.... I saw you speak to Vincy. Dear little fellow, isn't he?'