'Air! (I want to go round to the club)—tonic treatment!—that's the thing!—that's often the very best thing for a chill—this sort of chill…. Ah, that will do very nicely. Very neatly written…. Good-bye, dear.'
* * * * *
As soon as Bruce had gone out Edith rang up the elder Mrs Ottley on the telephone, and relieved her anxiety in advance. They were great friends; the sense of humour possessed by her mother-in-law took the sting out of the relationship.
* * * * *
The dinner at Aylmer's house was a great success. Bruce enjoyed himself enormously, for he liked nothing better in the world than to give his opinion. And Aylmer was specially anxious for his view as to the authenticity of a little Old Master he had acquired, and took notes, also, of a word of advice with regard to electric lighting, admitting he was not a very practical man, and Bruce evidently was.
Edith was interested and pleased to go to the house of her new friend and to reconstruct the scene as it must have been when Mrs Aylmer Ross had been there.
Freddy, the boy, was at school, but there was a portrait of him. Evidently he resembled his father. The sketch represented him with the same broad forehead, smooth, dense light hair, pale blue eyes under eyebrows with a slight frown in them, and the charming mouth rather fully curved, expressing an amiable and pleasure-loving nature. The boy was good-looking, but not, Edith thought, as handsome as Aylmer.
The only other woman present was Lady Everard, a plump, talkative, middle-aged woman in black; the smiling widow of Lord Everard, and well known for her lavish musical hospitality and her vague and indiscriminate good nature. She bristled with aigrettes and sparkled with diamonds and determination. She was marvellously garrulous about nothing in particular. She was a woman who never stopped talking for a single moment, but in a way that resembled leaking rather than laying down the law. Tepidly, indifferently and rather amusingly she prattled on without ceasing, on every subject under the sun, and was socially a valuable help because where she was there was never an awkward pause—or any other kind.
Vincy was there and young Cricker, whose occasional depressed silences were alternated with what he called a certain amount of sparkling chaff.
Lady Everard told Edith that she felt quite like a sort of mother to
Aylmer.