Antony leaned forward, close to me. His voice was strangely moved.
"Comtesse!" he began, when McGreggor knocked at the door.
"Mr. Gurrage is calling you, ma'am," she said, in her heavy, Scotch voice, "and he seems in a hurry, ma'am."
"Ambrosine!" echoed impatiently in the hall.
"Why, it must be dressing-time!" said Antony, calmly, looking at his watch. "I must not keep you," and he quietly left the room as Augustus burst in from my bedroom door.
"Where on earth have you been?" he said, crossly. "That Dodd woman has been driving us all mad! Willie Dodd came and joined us at bridge and took McCormack's place, and the old she-tike came after him and chattered like a monkey until she got him away. Where were you that you did not look after her?"
"I was here, in my sitting-room, talking to Sir Antony Thornhirst," I said, almost laughing. The picture of Mrs. Dodd at the bridge-table amused me to think of. Augustus saw me smiling, and he looked less ruffled.
"She is an old wretch," he said. "I wish I had not to ask Willie Dodd every year, but business is business, and I'll trouble you to be civil to them. We will weed out the whole of this lot, gradually, now. The mater will go off to Bournemouth at this time of the year, and so, by-and-by, we can have nothing but smart people."
The evening passed in an endless, boring round. This sort of company does not adapt itself as the people at Harley did. With my best endeavors to be a good hostess, the uneasiness of my guests prevented me from making them feel comfortable or at home.
Mrs. Dodd's impertinence would have been insupportable if it had not been so funny.