Very much the same topics, so far as Lucian could hear, seemed to prevail at the dinner table. He sat next to Lady Aviolet, and she talked about the housing of the poor.
“They want more fresh air. I hardly ever see an open window when I go into a cottage,” she said impressively.
The doctor had often heard her say the same thing before, and he replied mechanically, having long since outgrown the delusion that to reiterate words of pain and indignation at a regrettable state of affairs, is a step towards redressing it.
The sound of Rose Aviolet’s voice reached him very often, and he detected in it presently a new note that caused him to bestow at least half of his attention upon her, instead of the whole of it upon his hostess.
Already she had turned most of the contents of a glassful of sherry into her soup plate, and she was now freely drinking glass after glass of Sir Thomas’s admirable hock.
Lucian could see that her colour had deepened, and could hear that her voice and her laughter were rising steadily. She exchanged loud and rather elementary pleasantries with her partner, the youth Toby. By the time that Lady Aviolet rose from the table, Lucian felt tolerably certain that although Rose Aviolet was not intoxicated, neither was she entirely sober.
Except for his attentive, and far from unkindly, interest in watching her, Lucian would have found his evening very dull.
The four men sat round the dinner table for some time, and their slow talk was confined almost entirely to matters of agriculture.
When they adjourned to the billiard-room, Rose and Lady Aviolet had already taken places on the raised red leather-cushioned seats against the wall. The elder lady, knitting, sat upright. Rose lounged back, her knees crossed, and polished the nails of one hand against the palm of the other.
Diana offered to mark for the players.