“Afraid I shall have to leave you chaps to your own resources again,” he remarked abruptly. “Lady Stanworth hopes you’ll do whatever you like. Sorry to appear so inhospitable, but you know what things are like at this sort of time.”
He walked out of the room.
Roger decided to put out a small feeler.
“Jefferson doesn’t seem extraordinarily upset really, does he?” he said to Mrs. Plant. “Yet it must be rather a shock to lose an employer, with whom one’s been so many years, in this tragic way.”
Mrs. Plant glanced at him, as if rather questioning the good taste of this remark. “I don’t think Major Jefferson is the sort of man to show his real feelings before comparative strangers, do you, Mr. Sheringham?” she replied a little stiffly.
“Probably not,” Roger replied easily. “But he seems singularly unperturbed about it all.”
“He is a very imperturbable sort of person, I imagine.”
Roger tried another tack. “Had you known Mr. Stanworth long, Mrs. Plant?” he asked conversationally, leaning back in his chair and pulling his pipe out of his pocket. “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”
“Please do. Oh, no; not very long. My—my husband knew him, you know.”
“I see. A curious habit that of his, asking comparative, or, in my case at any rate, complete strangers down to these little gatherings, wasn’t it?”