"I didn't hear your name when Lady Lathkill introduced me to you."
Her yellow-brown eyes stared into mine for some moments before she said:
"Mrs. Hale!" Then she glanced across the table. "Colonel Hale is my husband."
My face must have signalled my surprise. She stared into my eyes very curiously, with a significance I could not grasp, a long, hard stare. I looked at the bald, pink head of the Colonel bent over his soup, and I returned to my own soup.
"Did you have a good time in London?" said Carlotta.
"No," said I. "It was dismal."
"Not a good word to say for it?"
"Not one."
"No nice people?"
"Not my sort of nice."