Chapter Fifteen.
“Oh,” said Peggy Annersley, “I didn’t suppose there would be anybody here.” This was not strictly accurate, because Peggy had seen Mr Musgrave through the open door as she was passing the billiard-room and had entered on the spur of the moment to discover why he was there, and alone. Such is the bump of feminine curiosity. “Have you been here long?”
“Since the interval,” he answered, rising at her entry, and confronting her with the shame-faced air of a man caught playing truant.
“Then you missed the pictures?”
“I was present during the first half of the programme,” he explained, feeling awkward under the steady regard of the observant grey eyes. To have missed viewing the pictures he began to realise was a breach of his duty as a guest.
“And you didn’t care for them?”
“I would scarcely put it that way,” Mr Musgrave said very earnestly. “The pictures were pretty; but the room was very hot; I preferred remaining here. Are the tableaux finished?”
“Not quite. But my part in them is. I came out became I was so thirsty. I’ve just been murdered by Othello.”
She seated herself on a settee and smiled at John Musgrave, who stood surveying her with gravely-intent gaze. She was still attired in Shakespearian costume and wore a little jewelled cap on her bright hair, which fell about her shoulders and gave her an air of extreme youth. John Musgrave, while he regarded her, was thinking how pretty she looked.