5
Joey felt the same, of course. But Joey was laughing and talking in her deep voice and making eyes. No, it was not the same. Joey was not happy.
These people sitting at his table were supposed to be friends. But they knew nothing about him. He made little quiet mocking jokes and laughed and kept things going. The Staple-Cravens knew nothing at all about him. Mrs. Staple-Craven did not care for anybody. She looked about and always spoke as if she were answering an accusation that nobody had made—a dressmaker persuading you to have something and talking on and on in fat tones to prevent your asking the price.... Mr. Craven only cared for himself. He was weak and pompous and fussy with a silly elaborate chivalrous manner. There was a stillness round the table. Miriam felt that it centred in her and was somehow her fault. Never mind. She had successfully got through whitebait and a quail. She would write home about the quails and whitebait and the guests and say nothing about her own silence—“Mr. Staple-Craven is a poet ...”
“Give Mélie some more drink, Percy,” said Mrs. Corrie. “It’s all wrong you two sittin’ together.”
“She likes to sit near me, don’t you, my duck?” said Mr. Craven, looking about for the wine and bowing to and fro from his hips.
“You’ve been away so long,” murmured Mr. Corrie. “What sort of a place is Balone to stay in?”
“Oh, nothing of a place in itself, nothing of a place. Why do you call it Balone?”
“Isn’t that right? That’s right enough. Come.”
Miriam waited eagerly, her eyes on Mr. Craven’s pink face with the grizzled hair above and below it. How perfectly awful he must look in his nightshirt, she thought, and flushed violently. “Balloyne,” he was saying carefully, showing his red lips and two rows of unnaturally even teeth.... “Oh, Lord, they mean Bologne.” Both men were talking together. “Balloyne is perfectly correct; the correct pronunciation,” said Mr. Craven in a loud testy voice, with loose lips. Mrs. Craven gazed up ... like a distressed fish ... into his flushed face. Mrs. Corrie was throwing out her little wavering broken laughs. Keeping his angry voice Mr. Craven went on. Miriam sat eagerly up and glanced at Mr. Corrie. He was sitting with his lips drawn down and his eyebrows raised ... his law-court face.... Suddenly his face relaxed and the dark boyish brown head with the clear thoughtful brow and the gentle kind eyes turned towards her. “Let’s ask Miss Henderson. She shall be umpire.”