‘He loved me very much,’ said Catherine simply.
‘Yes—and whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,’ said Christopher. ‘As no doubt Stephen has pointed out.’
‘Well, but when George made his will, five hundred a year and no rent to pay at all and all the furniture to use, wasn’t in the least chastening for one woman by herself,’ she said.
‘Five hundred? Why, I’ve got nearly double that, and I feel as poor as a rat!’ exclaimed Christopher.
‘Yes, but when George made his will it was worth much more.’
‘Was it? Why, when did he make his will?’
And Catherine, suddenly realising that in another moment at this rate she would inevitably tumble right into Virginia, paused an instant, and then said, ‘Before he died, of course——’ and refused after that to say another word about him.
VII
Well, Christopher didn’t want her to; he was only too glad that she wouldn’t go on. He now thought of George as a narrow man, with a head shaped like a box and a long upper lip. But she had been right to bring him out and air him conversationally, once he had been thrust between them by his own incredible idiocy, and it did seem to have quieted poor old George down a bit, for he didn’t again leap up unbidden to Christopher’s tongue. His ghost was laid. The dinner proceeded without him; and they had begun it so early that, even drawn out to its utmost limit of innumerable cigarettes and the slowest of coffee-drinking and sipping of unwanted liqueurs, it couldn’t be made to last beyond nine o’clock. What can you expect if you will begin before seven, thought the head waiter, watching the gentleman’s desperate efforts to stay where he was. Impossible to take her home and be parted from her before ten. It would be dreadful enough to have to at eleven, but the sheer horribleness of ten flashed an inspiration into Christopher’s mind: they would go to The Immortal Hour for whatever was left of it.
So they went, and were in time for the love scene, as well as for the whole of the last act.