“No; he was Timon of Athens.”
“Then who was your Mark Antony?” he asked.
Mrs. Evans felt herself flushing, and her annoyance at herself made her awkward in the pouring out of tea. She felt that Harry’s narrow, gimlet-like eyes were fixed on her.
“See how stupid I am,” she said. “I have spilled your tea in the saucer. Dear Mr. Harry, we had heaps of Cleopatras: Mrs. Altham was one, Mrs. Brooks was another. We danced with Hamlets, and—and anybody.”
But this crude, ridiculous youth, she felt, had some idea in his head.
“And did father and mother dance together all the evening?” he asked.
She felt herself growing impatient.
“Of course not. Everybody danced with everybody. We had quadrilles; all sorts of things.”
Then, with the mistaken instinct that makes us cautious in the wrong place, she determined to say a little more.
“But your father was so kind to me,” she said. “He helped me with all the arrangements. I could never have managed it except for him. We had tremendous days of talking and planning about it. Now tell me all about Cambridge.”