Leeds was less forbearing.
“Sour-faced devil, isn’t he? Not that it’s much wonder. If he’d had any sense, he’d have stayed where he was. What the eyes don’t see the heart won’t grieve for.”
“I should have thought he’d got used to it by this time,” said Mrs. Leeds simply. “Do you remember Captain Tompkins and that unfortunate engineer—what was his name—who threw up his job and went home?”
Evidently the Leeds couple, who had, after all, seen something of Mrs. Harter in Egypt, looked upon Bill Patch as being one of a series.
I reflected that perhaps they knew more about it than we did. Provincials take these things so seriously.
“I’m going to take that wretched chap to have a drink,” Leeds declared. “Utter little outsider though he is, I’m sorry for him.”
Mrs. Leeds, laughing loudly, called out, “Fellow-feeling, I suppose?” after him as he went off. I thought it to Lady Annabel’s credit that not a muscle of her face had moved during the whole of this rather crude conversation.
It was one of the few hot nights of the year, and sooner or later everybody drifted into the garden. I went there with Mary Ambrey, and we found our way to the furthest summerhouse, one that has fallen into disuse. The summerhouse proper, a strangely obvious little trysting place, was being monopolized by Christopher and Mrs. Fazackerly.
I suppose that every single couple who went into the garden that night must have passed the summerhouse, glanced inside it, smiled sympathetically and gone on.
Christopher and Nancy sat in two deck chairs, her frock and shoes and hair all looking equally silvery in the moonlight, and they were talking in low, happy voices.