“I wonder how much you really do dislike him,” he said.
She looked at him with a mysterious smile.
“Sometimes,” she murmured softly, “I wonder that myself.”
“Leaving the Prince out of the question,” he continued, “what you say is true enough. Only a few days ago, you had to attend that awful inquest, and the last time I saw dear old Dicky Vanderpole, he was looking forward to this very dance.”
“It seems callous of us to have come,” Penelope declared. “And yet, if we hadn’t, what difference would it have made? Every one else would have been here. Our absence would never have been noticed, and we should have sat at home and had the blues. But all the same, life is cruel.”
“Can’t say I find much to grumble at myself,” Sir Charles said cheerfully. “I’m frightfully sorry about poor old Dicky, of course, and every other decent fellow who doesn’t get his show. But, after all, it’s no good being morbid. Sackcloth and ashes benefit no one. Shall we have another turn?”
“Not yet,” Penelope replied. “Wait till the crowd thins a little. Tell me what you have been doing today?”
“Pretty strenuous time,” Sir Charles remarked. “Up at nine, played golf at Ranelagh all morning, lunched down there, back to my rooms and changed, called on my tailor, went round to the club, had one game of billiards and four rubbers of bridge.”
“Is that all?” Penelope asked.
The faint sarcasm which lurked beneath her question passed unnoticed. Sir Charles smiled good-humoredly.