“She doesn’t know,” said Mr. Hannay, “what a dinner is.  She’s got no appetite herself, and she tried to take mine away from me.  A regular dog-in-the-manger of a woman.”

“Oh, come, you know,” said Gorst.  “She can’t be as bad as all that.  Edith’s awfully fond of her.”

“And that’s good enough for you?” said Mrs. Hannay.

“Yes.  That’s good enough for me. I like her,” said Gorst stoutly; and Mrs. Hannay hid in her pocket-handkerchief a face quivering with mirth.

But Gorst, as he departed, turned on the doorstep and repeated, “Honestly, I like her.”

“Well, honestly,” said Mr. Hannay, “I don’t.”  And, lost in gloomy forebodings for his friend, he sought consolation in whiskey and soda.

Mrs. Hannay took a seat beside him.

“And what did you think of the dinner?” said she.

“It was a dead failure, Pussy.”

“You old stupid, I mean the dinner, not the dinner-party.”

Mrs. Hannay rubbed her soft, cherubic face against his sleeve, and as she did so she gently removed the whiskey from his field of vision.  She was a woman of exquisite tact.

“Oh, the dinner, my plump Pussy-cat, was a dream—­a happy dream.”

CHAPTER XII

“There are moments, I admit,” said Majendie, “when Hannay saddens me.”

Anne had drawn him into discussing at breakfast-time their host and hostess of the night before.

“Shall you have to see very much of them?” She had made up her mind that she would see very little, or nothing, of the Hannays.

“Well, I haven’t, lately, have I?” said he, and she owned that he had not.

“How you ever could—­” she began, but he stopped her.

“Oh well, we needn’t go into that.”

It seemed to her that there was something dark and undesirable behind those words, something into which she could well conceive he would not wish to go.  It never struck her that he merely wished to put an end to the discussion.

She brooded over it, and became dejected.  The great tide of her trouble had long ago ebbed out of her sight.  Now it was as if it had turned, somewhere on the edge of the invisible, and was creeping back again.  She wished she had never seen or heard of the Hannays—­detestable people.

She betrayed something of this feeling to Edith, who was impatient for an account of the evening. (It was thus that Edith entered vicariously into life.)

“Did you expect me to enjoy it?” she replied to the first eager question.

“No, I don’t know that I did. I should have enjoyed it very much indeed.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Was there anybody there that you disliked so much?”

“The Hannays were there.  It was enough.”

“You liked Mr. Gorst?”

“Yes.  He was different.”

“Poor Charlie.  I’m glad you liked him.”