The men could talk of nothing but the war news which had come by the afternoon post.
There was a gloom over the whole party. How on earth was I to escape from the oppression? They were not people of the world, who would be accustomed to each person doing what they pleased. They expected to be entertained all the time. To get away from them for a moment I would be obliged to invent some elaborate excuse.
Antony had not appeared upon the scene, or Augustus, either.
At last—at last Lady Wakely put her knitting in a bag and made a move towards the door.
"I shall rest now," she said, in her fat, kind voice, and I accompanied her from the room, leaving the rest of my guests to take care of themselves. I felt I should throw the cups at their heads if I stayed any longer.
There, in the hall, was Antony, quietly reading the papers. His dark-blue and black silk smoking-suit was extraordinarily becoming. He looked like a person from another planet after the people I had left in the drawing-room.
He rose as we passed him.
"Some very interesting South African news," he said, addressing me, and while I stopped to answer him Lady Wakely went up the stairs alone.
"The draughts are dreadful here again, Comtesse," he said, plaintively.
"Why did you not go into the library, then," I said, "or the billiard-room, or one of the drawing-rooms?"