“Of course one did not wish to be unkind,” he murmured, “but how much nicer it would be for everybody if these things didn’t happen! One felt one would like to show a little sympathy, only it was so awkward! Surely she ought to have known that he was married? It was her duty to know that sort of thing, seeing that she hadn’t a mother to make inquiries.”
A quiet little girl sitting beside him dropped a library book firmly on his feet, and he picked it up with inward reproach. After all, it wasn’t quite the thing to talk scandal in front of anybody so innocent and demure as Verity Cantacute contrived to look, in spite of her twenty-three years. He was fond of Verity, too, and valued her opinion highly in a strictly unconfessed fashion. He knew quite well why she had dropped the book, though he would not have admitted it for worlds.
“Ah!” Cornflower said meaningly. “A mother’s interference is not always particularly welcome! Occasionally, a mother can be counted a positive nuisance; and, in this case——”
Verity dropped an umbrella, this time, a sharp-pronged thing that caught Cornflower on the ankle, and hurt her horribly. An umbrella is an excellently subtle weapon of offence, if you know how to use it artistically. Silver-hair, while applauding mentally, was nevertheless of opinion that Verity had interfered somewhat arbitrarily. After all, Cornflower ought to have known, if anybody did, exactly how much of a nuisance a mother could be!
Deborah was just in front of him as they left the station in the swirl of the Saturday stream, and something about her—probably her left shoulder—smote his ridiculously soft heart a second time. He attached himself to her to observe how tiresome it was of the weather to look like drawing to thunder when he had a tennis-party at stake. Deb smiled unwillingly. She had always liked him, but she had her prickles out for the whole world, this morning.
“And the dust!” Silver-hair loved a grievance as cats love cream. “Personally, he expected an attack of appendicitis, any day, from swallowing so much ground limestone! Might he carry her basket for her, by any chance?”
Deborah gave him a real smile this time.
“You can just go and talk to somebody else,” she said. “I’m not going to have any St. Georges convoying me up the town. This is my treadmill, and I mean to keep it to myself.” She nodded at Smith’s as they passed. “You ordered a book there, last week, if you remember. Go in and ask about it.”
She stepped adroitly in front of a passing lorry, and was lost to him, and he drifted meekly into Smith’s, wondering vaguely if he could have done anything different. He had meant to be kind, and she had not really been rude—he was not sure that she hadn’t meant to be grateful. How tiresome these situations were!
It seemed to Deb that the whole of Westmorland was shopping that morning, for almost every busy car and sleek carriage held somebody she knew. Slinker had given a reception in her honour, a short time before, and an envious County had shaken her warmly by the hand. To-day, it was remarkable how many motor-folk seemed interested in the fit of their chauffeur’s coat, how many traps carried people hunting for something on the floor. Lady Metcalfe, stopping outside the fish-shop as Deb came up, discovered instantaneously that what she really wanted was stockings. The Bracewell girls, hunting hats in Miss Clayton’s, remembered in a flurry that they had been instructed to purchase tooth-powder; while the Hon. Mrs. Stalker made no bones about the matter at all, but, having walked straight into Deb’s arms, merely remarked to the sky that she desired sausages, and glided over her. Deborah, reflecting, was not sure that hers wasn’t the kindest method, after all.