"Don't know caviar?"
I said of course I had heard of it. He asked where. And I said, "In Shakespeare." The old Colonel choked, and they all laughed to see how apoplectic he looked—all except Betty and me.
I caught Betty's eye. She had that fiery-rose in her cheeks. I felt excited, too, and "strange." But I hoped they didn't notice. Betty and I had agreed that we must try not to show how unused we were to the ways of a great London house. So I made conversation. I asked about the absent guest.
My good-looking man pretended to be annoyed. He called, in his slightly husky voice, across the table to Aunt Josephine: "Already she wants to talk about The Tartar!" I explained that I meant the foreign lady—the very beautiful lady I had seen upstairs looking out of her door.
Again my man exchanged glances with Aunt Josephine. He was smiling disagreeably. Aunt Josephine did not smile at all. But the old Colonel laughed his croaking laugh, and said the lady upstairs expected people to go to her.
"Does she expect dinner to go to her, too?" Betty asked. And something in their faces made Betty blush, though she didn't know why, as I saw. I believed they were teasing Betty, just for fun, and to see that beautiful colour in her cheeks flicker and deepen.
So I leaned towards her, and across the flowers and the dazzling lights I told her the foreign lady was not very well. That was why she was not coming down.
The Colonel asked me why I thought the lady wasn't well. So I said: "Because I saw the doctor going up to her."
They were all quite still for a second or two. I looked at Aunt Josephine. Why was it wrong to mention the doctor's visit? Was she afraid of making these friends of the beautiful lady anxious about her? My man still was smiling, but not pleasantly. I couldn't tell whether the strange noises the Colonel made were choking or laughing. But I felt more and more miserably shy; And I had no clear idea of why I should feel so—unless it was that nothing these people said meant what it seemed to mean.
I could see that Betty was bewildered, too.