The Fanshawes, who were the immediate cause of the buying of the lip-stick, came to tea the second Sunday after the end of the honeymoon,—Ned, his mother and sister. They had been extraordinarily taken aback by Catherine’s appearance. The flat rang with their exclamations and laments. Catherine, who had been looking sixteen when they last saw her, Catherine the bright-eyed, the quick of movement, Catherine with her lovely skin and unruffled brow—they couldn’t get over it.
Christopher had gone for a walk in the Park after lunch, straining at his leash, angry at being kept in London this beautiful afternoon because the Fanshawes insisted on coming and thrusting their inquisitive noses where they weren’t wanted, and he hadn’t got back when they arrived, so that Catherine had them to herself at first.
‘Damn those women,’ he had remarked when, after persistent telephoning and letters and impassioned inquiries as to what had happened to her and when they might come and see her, Catherine had felt she had better face it and wrote and told them she was married and asked them to tea that Sunday to meet her husband. And when he heard that it wasn’t only women but Ned too, he damned him particularly, on the ground that he had a silly nose and wore a fur rug up to his chin; and, expressing extreme disgust at being kept in on his and Catherine’s only real afternoon by a blighter like that, he went off for a quick turn in the Park, promising faithfully to be back in time.
He wasn’t; and the Fanshawes got there first, and the flat was echoing with exclamations when he opened the door.
Catherine was sitting on the sofa, wedged between the two female Fanshawes, whose arms encircled her and whose free hands stroked her, and that worm Ned was looking on from his, Christopher’s, special chair.
‘I’ve had influenza—that’s why,’ Catherine was lying as he came in.
‘But fancy not telling us you were married! Fancy not telling us a word!’
‘Of course it’s what we’ve been dying to have happen for ages—isn’t it, Ned?’
‘You sweet little thing, we’re so delighted—aren’t we, Ned?’
‘Do tell us all about it. Isn’t he off his head with happiness? How pleased Virginia must be——’