“Well then, my dear, I’m sure you are quite right not to criticize it. All I can say is that I never want to eat a better supper.”
Suddenly Mrs. Ames became aware that another piece of solid outline had appeared round her vague discontent and reaction.
“No doubt you think that all Millie’s arrangements are perfect in every way,” she observed.
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” said he, rather hotly; “but I do know that when a woman has been putting herself to all that trouble and expense to entertain her friends, her friends would show a nicer spirit if they refrained from carping and depreciating her.”
“No amount of appreciation would make tinned peaches fresh, or turn custard into ice-cream,” said Mrs. Ames, laying down the fork with which she had dallied with the kedjeree, which indeed was but a sordid sort of creation. “It is foolish to pretend that a thing is perfect when it is not. Nor do I consider her manners as a hostess by any means perfect. She looked as cross as two sticks when poor Mrs. Brooks appeared. I suppose she thought that nobody had a right to be Cleopatra besides herself. To be sure poor Mrs. Brooks looked very silly, but if everybody who looked silly last night should have stayed away, there would not have been much dancing done.”
She took several more sips of the strong tea, while he unfolded and appeared engrossed in the morning paper, and under their stimulating influence saw suddenly and distinctly how ill-advised was her attack. She had yielded to temporary ill-temper, which is always a mistake. It was true that in her mind she was feeling that Lyndhurst last night had spent far too much with his hostess; in a word, she felt jealous. It was, therefore, abominably stupid, from a merely worldly point of view, to criticize and belittle Millie to him. If there was absolutely no ground for her jealousy—which at present was but a humble little green bud—such an attack was uncalled for; if there was ground it was most foolish, at this stage, at any rate, to give him the least cause for suspecting that it existed. But she was wise enough now, not to hasten to repair her mistake, but to repair it slowly and deliberately, as if no repair was going on at all.
“But I must say the garden looked charming,” she said after a pause. “Did she tell you, Lyndhurst, whether it was she or her husband who saw to the lighting? The scheme was so comprehensive; it took in the whole of the lawn; there was nothing patchy about it. I suspect Dr. Evans planned it; it looked somehow more like a man’s work.”
A look of furtive guilt passed over the Major’s face; luckily it was concealed by the Daily Mail.
“No; Evans told me himself that he had nothing to do with it,” he said. “It was pretty, I thought; very pretty.”
“If the nights continue hot,” said she, “it would be nice to have the garden illuminated one night, if dear Millie did not think we were appropriating her ideas. I do not think she would; she is above that sort of thing. Well, dear, I must go and order dinner. Have you any wishes?”