“Then just one act of Downstairs. But one act was better than four. There had been railway whistles and flags waving from the box opposite.”
“That was Mrs. Trentham,” said Silvia.
“It was. So we swept in her lot—the usual one—with Lord Poole, who told me to kiss you for him, and they all came to supper at home. Really, that plan of keeping the house open was an admirable one. It’s awful fun; we talked and smoked and laughed until everyone melted away.”
She saw (and loved to see) the brightness and briskness of him; she heard (and loved to hear) his cheerfulness and alacrity.
“Oh, I am glad you had a nice evening,” she said. “I nearly telephoned to say I was coming up to keep you company. But then I thought I had better stop and—and try to make myself disagreeable at home.”
“Did you succeed, darling?” asked Peter.
Exactly then it struck Silvia that if Peter had dined, had sat “so long” with elbows on the table, and had got to the theatre in time for anything at all, he could not have been detained very late at the Foreign Office. She instantly drew down, with a rush and a rattle, some mental blind in front of that. She shut it out: she did not choose to see it.
“Yes, pretty well,” she said. “Mother went to bed at ten, anyhow, which is early for her, so I must have been fairly successful.”
“Not proved,” said Peter. “She may have been sleepy. It’s a sleepy place, you know.”
“I know,” she said. “Two nights ago I came and looked into your room, as I had not heard you come to bed, and there you were, fast asleep.”