'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. 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.