“Is your sister coming with us?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’ll be better than nobody. She’ll be somebody for you to go with to those picture-houses that you’re so fond of. But it’s a pity that girl hasn’t got a sensible husband. We might get a decent game of bridge, then.”
“It’s a pity you haven’t got any men friends,” Elsie retorted. “I never knew anybody like you for that.”
Williams did not answer, but he turned upon his wife a look, peculiar to himself, that always vaguely frightened her. It held not only utter contempt, but something of quiet, unspecified menace.
She hastily spoke again. “Geraldine’s got a—a young fellow that she thinks is going with her now. A boy called Morrison.”
“Is he coming to Torquay?”
It was Horace Williams’ own matter-of-course tone in making the suggestion that suddenly filled Elsie with a frantic determination to see it carried out.
“Yes, most likely he is. So you’ll get your bridge, I daresay, and there’ll be somebody to take us to the pictures of an evening.”
As Elsie said the words, her heart seemed to herself suddenly to leap against her side, as though in anticipation of a joy almost too great to be borne.