'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?'

'He's a great friend of mine.'

'I'm tremendously devoted to him, too. He's what used to be called an exquisite. And he _is_ exquisite; he has an exquisite mind. But, of course, you know what a good sort he is.'

'Rather.'

'He seems rather to look at life than to act in it, doesn't he?'

continued Aylmer. 'He's a brilliant sort of spectator. Vincy thinks that all the world's a stage, but _he's_ always in the front row of the stalls. I never could be like that ... I always want to be right in the thick of it, on in every scene, and always performing!'

'To an audience?' said Edith.

He smiled and went on.

'What's so jolly about him is that though he's so quiet, yet he's genial; not chilly and reserved. He's frank, I mean--and confiding.

Without ever saying much. He expresses himself in his own way.'

'That's quite true.'

'And, after all, it's really only expression that makes things real.

'If you don't talk about a thing, it has never happened.''

'But it doesn't always follow that a thing has happened because you do talk about it,' said Edith. 'Ah, Mrs Mitch.e.l.l's going !'

She floated away.

He remained in a rather ecstatic state of absence of mind.

Mrs Mitch.e.l.l gladly told Edith all about Aylmer Ross, how clever he was, how nice, how devoted to his little boy. He had married very young, it seemed, and had lost his wife two years after. This was ten years ago, and according to Mrs Mitch.e.l.l he had never looked at another woman since. Women love to simplify in this sentimental way.

'However,' she said consolingly, 'he's still quite young, under forty, and he's sure to fall in love and marry again.'

'No doubt,' said Edith, wishing the first wife had remained alive. She disliked the non-existent second one.

Nearly all the men had now joined the ladies in the studio, with the exception of Bruce and of Aylmer Ross. Mrs Mitch.e.l.l had taken an immense fancy to Edith and showed it by telling her all about a wonderful little tailor who made coats and skirts better than Lucile for next to nothing, and by introducing to her Lord Rye and the emba.s.sy man, and Mr Cricker. Edith was sitting in a becoming corner under a shaded light from which she could watch the door, when Vincy came up to talk to her.

'You seemed to get on rather well at dinner,' he said.

'Yes; isn't Captain Willis a dear?'

'Oh, simply sweet. So bright and clever. I was sure you'd like him, Edith.'

Captain Willis here came up and said, a shade more jovially than he had spoken at dinner, with his laugh:

'Well, you know, Mrs Ottley, what I always say is--live and let live and let it go at that; what? But they never _do_, you know! They won't--and there it is!'