“I see!”
“Of course! Parquet——” The Baxter girl took a step or two and pirouetted back to us. “Perfect! You ought to give a dance, Miss Serle.”
Anita made no answer, but taking the can and the towel she opened the door of dispute, and, stooping an instant on the threshold to lift some small object from the floor, went out of the room. We heard her set down her load on the landing, and the rattle of the sash as she threw up the window, paused, and shut it again. She came back. A fresh inflow of acrid vapour preceded her and set us coughing. It was the stooping, I suppose, that had reddened her cheeks, for she was flushed when she came back to us. It was the only time that I ever saw my cousin with a colour. She spoke to us, a little gaspingly, as if the fog had caught her too by the throat—
“Jenny’s quite right. One can’t see an inch in front of one. No—not a cab in hearing. You’ll have to resign yourselves to staying on indefinitely. What? oh, what nonsense, Kent! As if I’d let you go in that state! Besides, there’s Jasper’s poem. Are you going away without hearing it?” The soft monologue continued as she shepherded them to the fire. “That’s always the way—one talks—one gets no work done. Get under the light, Jasper! Beryl, help me to move the table. Oh yes, Jasper, I forgot to tell you, I met Roy Huth the other day and he had just read——”
I heard a movement behind me. I turned. Kent had half risen. He spoke—
“Sit down. Sit down here.” He touched the cushion beside him.
I shook my head.
“Not yet. My cousin——”
“Ah——”
We were silent.