'I haven't been since Saturday.'
'But it would get me out of a hole.' He spoke in humble entreaty.
'I'd come directly, but I'm engaged.'
Tommy looked at her sorrowfully, and, it must be added, sceptically.
'Engaged to dinner and supper,' averred Peggy with emphasis as she pulled her hat straight and put on her gloves.
'You wouldn't even look in between the two and—and have an ice with us?'
'I really can't eat three meals in one evening, Tommy.'
'Oh, chuck one of them. You might, for once!'
'Impossible! I'm dining with my oldest friend,' smiled Peggy. 'I simply can't.' She turned to Airey, giving him her hand with a laugh. 'I like you best, because you just let me——'
Both words and laughter died away; she stopped abruptly, looking from one man to the other. There was something in their faces that arrested her words and her merriment. She could not analyse what it was, but she saw that she had made both of them uncomfortable. They had guessed what she was going to say; it would have been painful to one of them, and the other knew it. But whom had she wounded—Tommy by implying that his hospitality was importunate and his kindness clumsy, or Airey by a renewed reference to his poverty as shown in the absence of pressing invitations from him? She could not tell; but a constraint had fallen on them both. She cut her farewell short and went away, vaguely vexed and penitent for an offence which she perceived but did not understand.