“Did she?” he said. “The aunts were talking so much that I didn’t notice it. This is the panelling I spoke to you of, by the way.”
“Charming. Just the same as in the drawing-room, isn’t it?”
“The green drawing-room, please,” said Peter.
“I beg its pardon,” she said.
“Granted, I’m sure,” said he without a smile.
Nellie tried a handful of other topics, and her curiosity to know what was the matter vastly increased. She had narrowed down the field of her conjectures to a certainty that, whatever it was, it concerned her host and hostess. Yesterday at lunch, when she had been alone with Silvia, she had the first impression of it, yet she had seen Peter that same evening in town (by way of nursing his cold he had come to the theatre with her), and he, in spite of that affliction, had been immensely cheerful, chuckling with prophetic delight at the feast that the uncles and aunts would spread for them. And he had not seen Silvia since (for she had already left London) until his entry into the green drawing-room half an hour ago.
She would much have preferred, as on that evening a month ago, when they dined alone together in London and he had been so pointedly reticent on the subject of Silvia, that he should volunteer a statement, but his reticence then seemed of totally different quality from what it was now.... She tried one more topic.
“Peter, dear, isn’t it lovely?” she said. “I’m going to have a baby.”
Peter jerked himself upright in his chair. “Really?” he said. “And here are you telling me that!”