‘Oh, Linda goes everywhere. There is a legend that she and the Doctor dined one night at mess.’
‘And Madame Corbie? Don’t you think a party that is staid enough for an Archdeacon’s wife must be safe for me?’
It was Dinah who spoke; yet the tone, the words, were curiously unlike Dinah’s. Some other woman, surely, stood in the place of her who during four years had been as wax to every careless turn of Gaston Arbuthnot’s will!
‘I can see that you have made up your mind—confess, Dinah, you have run already to Madame Voisin’s and ordered your dress for Wednesday?’
She turned away, impatiently, at the question.
‘Well, I will not be unwise enough to argue. At least persuade Geoffrey to go too, get Geoffrey to take care of you. Had I been consulted,’ remarked Gaston drily, ‘I should have advised you to “come out” anywhere rather than on a yacht hired, in this kind of way, by Lord Rex Basire and his brother subs.’
‘Gaston!’
‘Oh, not because of the right or wrong of the thing. I don’t,’ said Gaston, ‘go in for transcendental attitudes, morally or physically. My advice would have been simply offered on a matter of taste. You, my love, are doubtless the best judge. What time is it—seven? Then I have scarcely half-an-hour left to dress.’
‘To dress!’ faltered Dinah. ‘And my briar roses, our walk to Roscoff Common? I have been looking forward to it for days. Did you not promise to draw me some real briar roses for the finish of my border?’