“Upon my word, Mrs. Evans,” he said jovially, “you make me feel a hundred years old when you talk like that, as if your days of youth and success were over. Why, some one at your garden-party yesterday afternoon told me for a fact that Miss Elsie was the daughter of your husband’s first wife. Wouldn’t believe me when I said she was your daughter. Poor Sanders—it was Mr. Sanders who said it—had to pay ten shillings to me for his positiveness. He betted, you know, he insisted on betting. But really, any one who didn’t happen to know would be right to make such a bet ninety-nine times out of a hundred.”
She gave him a little smile with lowered eyelids.
“Dear Elsie!” she said. “She is such a comfort to me. She quite manages the house for me, and spares me all the trouble. She always knows how much asparagus ought to cost, and what happens to strawberry ice after a party. I never was a good housekeeper. Wilfred always used to say to me, ‘Go out and enjoy yourself, my dear, and I’ll pay the bills.’ Of course, it was all his kindness, I know, but sometimes I wonder if it would not have been truer kindness to have made me think and contrive more. Elsie does it all now, but when my little girl marries it will be my turn again. Tell me, Major Ames, is it you or cousin Amy who makes everything go so beautifully at your house? I think—shall I say it—I think it must be you. When a man manages a house there is always more precision somehow: you feel sure that everything has been foreseen and provided for. Printed menu-cards, for instance—so chic, so perfectly comme-il-faut.”
Watkins had brought out a large dish, rather like a sponging-tin, for the sweet-peas, and Mrs. Evans had begun the really Herculean labour of putting them in water. A grille of wire network fitted over the rim of it: each pea was stuck in separately. She looked up from her task at him.
“Am I right?” she asked.
Major Ames was not really an untruthful man, but many men who are not really untruthful get through a wonderful lot of misrepresentation.
“Oh, you mustn’t give me credit for that,” he said (truthfully so far); “it’s a dodge we always used to have at mess, so why not at one’s own house also? It’s better than written cards, which take a lot of time to copy out again and again, and then, you see, my dear Amy is not very strong at French, and doesn’t want always to be bothering me to tell her whether there’s an accent in one word, or two ‘s’s’ in another. Saves time and trouble.”
Mrs. Evans applauded softly with pink finger-tips.
“Ah, I knew it was you!” she said.
Now, clearly (though almost without intention) Major Ames had gone too far to retreat: also retreat implied a flat contradiction of what Mrs. Evans said she knew, which would have been a rudeness from which his habitual gallantry naturally revolted. Consequently, being unable to retreat, he had to make himself as safe as possible, to entrench himself.