‘Of course, I promised, and of course I shall fulfil, my dear child. The Roscoff roses will keep.’
‘And you are going out to dinner again, Gaston?’
‘Only to The Bungalow.’ Mr. Arbuthnot made a move towards the door of his dressing-room. ‘Mrs. Thorne is amiable enough generally to condone a morning-coat. To-night, I believe, there will be more of a party than usual.’
Dinah rested her hand upon her husband’s shoulder, but not with the clinging, imploring touch to which Gaston Arbuthnot was accustomed.
‘If I could have an answer to one question I should be content,’ she exclaimed, almost with passion. ‘It is an answer you can give. What are Mrs. Thorne’s gifts? What is the cleverness which draws a man as difficult to please as you five days a week to her house?’
The situation had become critical. A feverish colour burned on Dinah’s face, her question was trenchant and desperately to the point. But it was just the hardest thing imaginable to get Gaston Arbuthnot into a tiptoe posture. The drama of his life, so he himself avowed, consisted, a good nine-tenths of it, of carpenter’s scenes. If he were forced to declaim some passage of high and tragic blank-verse it would inevitably sound like a bit of genteel comedy from his lips!
A husband of warmer temper, it would be unjust to say of warmer heart, must have kindled at the daring of Dinah’s words, the ardent eagerness of her face.
Gaston Arbuthnot was interested rather than moved. He answered with the chill candour of an impartial judge:
‘Linda’s gifts? First on the list we must place the cardinal one of vocal silence. Mrs. Thorne does not sing.’
‘She can accompany other people who do,’ said Dinah, with imprudent significance.