Charlie Gorst hurried away to get Mrs. Majendie some tea, and Lawson’s Hannay’s large form moved into the gap thus made, blocking Anne’s view of the room.  He stood looking down upon her with an extraordinary smile of mingled apology and protection.  Gorst’s return was followed by Majendie, wandering uneasily with his plate.  He smiled at Anne, too; and his smile conveyed the same suggestion of desperation and distress.  It was as if he said to her:  “I’m sorry for letting you in for such a crew, but how can I help it?” She smiled back at him brightly, as much as to say; “Don’t mind.  It amuses me.  I’m taking it all in.”

He wandered away, and Anne felt that the women exchanged looks across her shoulders.

“I think I’ll be going, Pussy dear,” said Mrs. Ransome, nodding some secret intelligence.  She elbowed her way gently across the room, and came back again, shaking her head hopelessly and helplessly.  “She says I can go if I like, but she’ll stay,” said Mrs. Ransome under her breath.

“Oh-h-h,” said Mrs. Hannay under hers.

“What am I to do?” said Mrs. Ransome, flurried into audible speech.

“Stay—­stay.  It’s much better.”  Mrs. Hannay plucked her husband by the sleeve, and he lowered an attentive ear.  Mrs. Ransome covered the confidence with a high-pitched babble.

“You find Scale a very sociable place, don’t you, Mrs. Majendie?” said Mrs. Ransome.

“Go,” said Mrs. Hannay, “and take her off into the conservatory, or somewhere.”

“More sociable in the winter-time, of course.” (Mrs. Ransome, in her agitation, almost screamed it.)

“I can’t take her off anywhere, if she won’t go,” said Mr. Hannay in a thick but penetrating whisper.  He collapsed into a chair in front of Anne, where he seemed to spread himself, sheltering her with his supine, benignant gaze.

Mrs. Hannay was beside herself, beholding his invertebrate behaviour.  “Don’t sit down, stupid.  Do something—­anything.”

He went to do it, but evidently, whatever it was, he had no heart for it.

A maid came in and lit a lamp.  There was a simultaneous movement of departure among the nearer guests.

“Oh, heavens,” said Mrs. Hannay, “don’t tell me they’re all going to go!”

Anne, serenely contemplating these provincial manners, was bewildered by the horror in Mrs. Hannay’s tone.  There was no accounting for provincial manners, or she would have supposed that Mrs. Hannay, mortified by the presence of her most undesirable acquaintance, would have rejoiced to see them go.

Their dispersal cleared a space down the middle of the room to the bay-window, and disclosed a figure, a woman’s figure, which occupied, majestically, a settee.  The settee, set far back in the bay of the window, was in a direct line with Anne’s sofa.  That part of the room was still unlighted, and the figure, sitting a little sideways, remained obscure.