Linda Thorne, a fair decipherer of surface feeling in general, could gather absolutely nothing from Gaston’s level tone. He raised his eyes, during a steady second or two, from his paper; he met her interrogative glance with one of strict neutrality.
‘I am relieved and at the same time stupidly inquisitive. Now, why in the name of all things truthful, did you not mention that Mrs. Arbuthnot meant to go with us on Wednesday?’
Gaston was silent; too absorbed perhaps in his creation, slight chalk sketch though it was, to give heed to matter so unimportant as this which Linda pressed upon him.
‘Possibly you were not aware that Mrs. Arbuthnot was going!’
Linda Thorne hazarded the remark with a suspicion of innocent malice.
‘That really is the truth.’ Taking a folding-book from his breast, Gaston stored away his sketch carefully between its leaves. ‘You must excuse me, Mrs. Thorne. An idea struck me just now, suggested by a look I surprised on the face of Miss Verschoyle, and I hastened forthwith to make my memorandum. Dinah to enact hostess for the subalterns on Wednesday, do you say? Surely not. I could almost wish that it were to be so. But my wife, as you know, keeps to her own quiet way of life.’
‘We have Lord Rex Basire’s word for it. According to Lord Rex, Mrs. Arbuthnot has most decidedly accepted their invitation.’
‘Dinah does not mean to go. Lord Rex deceives himself.’
Gaston Arbuthnot spoke with sincerity. He had told Geoffrey, as a jest, that Dinah was turning over a new leaf, beginning to discover, poor girl, that there might be other music in the spheres besides that of the eternal domestic duo without accompaniment. Of Dinah’s profoundly changed mood, her resolve of gaining wider views by frequenting a world which as yet she knew not, he was ignorant.