"Oh, we can talk! We shan't disturb her," Miss Vintry hastened to assure him with a smile. "You've been quite a stranger at Nutley. Did you find the atmosphere too romantic? Too much love-making for your taste?"
"I did feel rather in the way now and then."
"Perhaps you were once or twice! When you attached yourself to Vivien after dinner, and left Mr. Harry no resource but poor me!"
Surely if she spoke like that—actually recalling the critical occasion—she could have no suspicion? Either she must never have noticed the shawl at all, or feel sure that it had been removed before her talk with Harry reached the point of danger.
"I'm sure you entertained him very well. I don't think he'd complain."
"Well, sometimes people like talking over their affairs with a third person for a change—as I daresay Vivien has been doing with you just now! And, after all, because you're engaged, everybody else in the world needn't at once seem hopelessly stupid."
Certainly Isobel Vintry could never seem hopelessly stupid, thought Andy. Rather she was superbly plausible.
"And perhaps even Mr. Harry may like a rest from devotion—or will you be polite enough to suggest that a temporary change in its object is a better way of putting it?"
Precisely what it had been in Andy's mind to suggest—but not exactly by way of politeness! It was disconcerting to have the sting drawn from his thoughts or his talk in this way.
"That might be polite to you—in one sense; it might sound rather unjust to Harry," he answered.