“Yes, that’s what I’ve been saying to myself all day.”
“It is so much nicer of you to say it to me.”
“Oh, Mrs. Jones, you are always so clever at turning things.”
They smile at each other with perfect and well-bred inanity for a second, and then Fred Lasceet slips in between them.
“How do you do, Mrs. Jones?”
“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Lasceet? It is ever so long since I have seen you.”
“So good of you to think it long. I am sure it seems an age to me.”
Mr. Maunder having meanwhile glided through the crowd with an eel-like elusiveness, Mrs. Chumley Jones is left with a remark upon which to form her conversation for the afternoon.
“We have had such a strange winter; don’t you think so, Mr. Lasceet? It is really like a Roman winter.”