Nancy Fazackerly took off her hat, and the sun shone on her beautiful blonde hair, and she looked very happy and young.
Christopher Ambrey sat next her and looked at her a great deal.
“I wonder if old Chris has asked her, yet,” I heard Martyn say quietly to one of the Kendals. And she replied in an interested way:
“I should think he’d do it to-day, anyhow. Wouldn’t you?”
“Too many people about.”
“They can go for a walk or something, after lunch.”
“We’ll have a bet on it, if you like,” Martyn suggested, and they arranged the terms of a very mild wager, with some suppressed giggling from Aileen.
I thought to myself that if I had been a young man, people like Martyn and the Kendals would not have been given the opportunity of exercising their wit upon my love affairs. But as a matter of fact I knew well enough that if Chris and Nancy really did become engaged, they would probably be told all about the bet, and would find it quite amusing.
The servants from Grainges had solemnly laid an enormous tablecloth over the heather, and weighted the corners of it—not with stones, nothing so rural—but with plated ice buckets, full of broken ice. We had lobster, and salmon-mayonnaise, and chicken salad, and galantine, and an immense variety of cold sweets and pastries, and our plates were changed by the servants after each course, and our glasses filled with Moselle, or whisky or lemonade.
One felt ungrateful for feeling that it would have been a relief if only the salt had been forgotten, or there hadn’t been enough rolls to go round.