At one moment she tried to lead the conversation into a more serious channel: "How do you think Anna is looking?" she asked abruptly.
"A bit peaky," Peter replied lightly, "poor little mole! When you go back to England," he went on more gravely, "you ought to take her with you. It would do her all the good in the world. Take her out of herself, I mean."
"She wouldn't come," Rosemary replied earnestly.
"Don't you think so?"
"Why, Peter," she retorted, feeling exasperated with him for this air of indifference even where Anna was concerned, "you know Anna would not come. For one thing," Rosemary added impulsively, "I don't suppose she would be allowed to."
"You mean her mother wouldn't let her?"
"No," she replied laconically. "I didn't mean that."
"Well, then?" he retorted. Then, as Rosemary, shocked, angry, remained silent, holding her lips tightly pressed together, almost as if she were afraid that words would slip out against her will, Peter shrugged his broad shoulders and rejoined flippantly:
"Oh, I suppose you mean old What's-his-name—Naniescu—and all that rubbish. I don't think he would worry much. He has been a brick, letting Anna and Philip out like that. I expect he would just as soon see them both out of the country as not. Jolly good thing it would be for both of them! They would learn some sense, the monkeys!"
He paused and looked round at Rosemary. Then, as she seemed to persist in her silence, he insisted: