“With Claude?” Sylvia echoed.
“Yes, he came to see me and left his hat in the hall and Michael took it away with him in his rage. It was the only top-hat he’d got, and he had an engagement for an ‘at home,’ and he couldn’t go out in the sun, and, oh dear, you never heard such a fuss, and when Mabel—”
“Mabel?”
“—Miss Harper, my housekeeper, offered to go out and buy him another, he was livid with fury. He asked if I thought he was made of money and could buy top-hats like matches. I’m glad you’ve come. Michael has broken off the engagement, and I expected you rather. A friend of his—rather a nice boy called Maurice Avery—is coming round this evening to arrange about selling everything. I shall have quite a lot of money. Let’s go away and be quiet after all this bother and fuss.”
“Look here,” Sylvia said. “Before we go any further I want to know one thing. Is Claude going to drop in and out of your life at critical moments for the rest of time?”
“Oh no! We’ve quarreled now. He’ll never forgive me over the hat. Besides, he puts some stuff on his hair now that I don’t like. Sylvia, do come and look at my frocks. I’ve got some really lovely frocks.”
Maurice Avery, to whom Sylvia took an instant dislike, came in presently. He seemed to attribute the ruin of his friend’s hopes entirely to a failure to take his advice:
“Of course this was the wrong house to start with. I advised him to take one at Hampstead, but he wouldn’t listen to me. The fact is Michael doesn’t understand women.”
“Do you?” Sylvia snapped.
Avery looked at her a moment, and said he understood them better than Michael.