He had a peculiar way of not looking at the person to whom he was—presumably—listening, and all the while that Sallie was with him he looked at Bill Patch and at his wife.
“Well, if you ask me, that little worm Harter will be filing his petition within a month,” said Mrs. Leeds cheerfully.
“If I were in his shoes, I’d take that woman home and thrash her,” charitably remarked old Carey, to whom she had spoken.
“She was pretty hot stuff, even in Egypt.”
“She! I’m not thinking about her. I’m thinking about a decent young fellow like Patch. She’s out to make a fool of that lad and, by Jove, she’s succeeding. He’s bewitched.”
“Men always run after that sort of woman. They were all after her in Cairo. Hector would have been as bad as any of them if I hadn’t put my foot down.”
Mrs. Leeds looked up at her husband and laughed most good-naturedly.
It was quite evident that to her the whole thing was a joke, and a joke of the type that most appealed to her.
Where Lady Annabel saw sin she saw only vulgarity, and vulgarity amused her.
I am reminded that Lady Annabel was particularly gracious that evening. It was quite characteristic of her that once she had given us her advice and we had tacitly refused to take it, she should avoid any slightest hint of the “I-told-you-so” attitude that really was open to her.