“Is that the usual test out here—how one entertains? I am still on my probation then, because we have no courts, and have not started Bridge. Ally and I only give whiskey-and-soda dinners at present.”
“Well, that is excellent, or sounds so!” he retorted, turning to look at her more closely. Captain Gilderoy always retained his air of being a gentleman whatever he said or did, but he was also, at times, a man—the black rose that Chum was wearing was on his side, not the Administrator’s, and he was well content with his lot, so much so that when Diana Churton loudly claimed his attention to pronounce judgment on a short issue of Victorian stamps, he turned reluctantly to answer, leaving Mrs. Lewin for the moment unmonopolised.
The dinner was practically over, but there was just that pause of desultory talk before Mrs. White rose that kept the men from their cigarettes—in this house the women were, officially, not supposed to smoke—and Chum knew that her hostess would look at her in a minute, and altered her attitude to one of more alertness; but she had a school-girl trick of slipping off her shoes under the dinner-table, and for the minute the little right-hand slipper was missing.
She was feeling about for it with a distressed silk foot, when an inspiration flashed into her head, filling her eyes with brilliant laughter. The Administrator was not at the moment occupied any more than herself; he was leaning back in his chair, his eyes for once cast down, his massive face inwardly absorbed, but one nervous hand playing with the fruit knife betraying the active, working brain. Mrs. Lewin looked at him ... were they all wrong? Had Mrs. Clayton and the water scheme failed to arrest his attention for exactly the same reason that her own tentative efforts had not succeeded—that they had all appealed to the wrong side of the man? How would audacity do instead?...
She leaned forward, her face flushed with her own uncertain daring, her eyes still full of laughter, half excited, half amused at the experiment, and spoke hurriedly under her breath.
“Mr. Gregory, will you try and find my shoe for me?”
The hand that played with the fruit knife stopped as if by clockwork, and the Administrator raised his hard eyes and looked full into hers in his amazement. A half-smile softened his own lips in answer to her apologetic dimples.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lewin?”
“My shoe!” said Chum with apparent impatience. “I have a foolish habit of slipping them off at meals and I’ve lost one, and Mrs. White will look at me and rise in a minute, and I can’t go. Do feel for it! It must be somewhere near you.”
His face flushed dark red with suppressed laughter, as, more awake to the situation than she had ever known him, he sat back and felt cautiously about in the unseen space of floor. A minute later he had really found it, and caught it between his feet. The little soft satin thing felt utterly alien and feminine, and yielded to the pressure of his feet, yet just because it was so empty it suggested to his senses the foot that would fill it. He pushed it carefully towards Mrs. Lewin, his eyes still fixed upon her.