Ronald put down his menu-card. Always he pretended not to be deaf.
“Beg your pardon, Hester?” he said.
There are many things which it is easy to say once but impossible to repeat. This seemed one of them, and the next silence was rather longer.
“You will like your game of whist to-night, Granny?” asked Violet at length.
Lady Yardley did not answer. She held up her finger as if listening, not to what Violet said but to something inaudible to the others. Then she turned to the butler.
“Give me my stick,” she said. “I hear wheels. That is Colin.”
“No, Granny, he’s not coming to-night,” said Violet.
Lady Yardley grasped her stick and had half-risen from her place, when there came a step along the gallery floor, and the door opened.
“It is Colin,” said she.
Colin entered: it was as if the sunlight came in with him. The room seemed to leap into brightness.