"I'm quite sure Hilda would never dream of any such thing!"
IV
There was an irruption of Jimmie and Johnnie, and three of the Swetnam brothers, including him known as the Ineffable. Jimmie and Johnnie played the rôle of the absolutely imperturbable with a skill equal to Charlie's own; and only a series of calm "How-do's?" marked the greetings of these relatives. The Swetnams were more rollickingly demonstrative. Now that the drawing-room was quite thickly populated, Hilda, made nervous by Mr. Orgreave's jocular insinuation that she herself was the object of the Swetnams' call, took refuge, first with Janet, and then, as Janet was drawn into the general crowd, with Charlie, who was absently turning over the pages of "In Memoriam."
"Know this?" he inquired, friendly, indicating the poem.
"I don't," she said. "It's splendid, isn't it?"
"Well," he answered. "It's rather on the religious tack, you know. That's why I'm reading it." He smiled oddly.
"Really?"
He hesitated, and then nodded. It was the strangest avowal from this young dandy of twenty-three with the airy and cynical tongue. Hilda thought: "Here, then, is another!" And her own most secret troubles recurred to her mind.
"What's that about Teddy Clayhanger?" Charlie cried out, suddenly looking up. He had caught the name in a distant conversation.
Janet explained how they had seen Edwin, and went on to say that it was impossible to persuade him to call.