'
'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 Mitchell 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.
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