“You appear to have a predilection for being murdered,” he observed. “What shall I get you—lemonade?”
She made a negative movement of her head.
“Champagne, please. I’m frightfully tired.”
Mr Musgrave poured out a glass of the sparkling wine and handed it to her. He stood behind her while she drank it, and when she finished the wine he took the glass from her and replaced it on the table. When he turned about from performing this office he observed Miss Annersley put out a hand towards a box of cigarettes within reach. He had not suspected before that she smoked. Her action occasioned him a most unpleasant shock. Peggy was to experience a shock also. Before she could select a cigarette and withdraw her hand from the box another hand closed suddenly upon hers and held it firmly. John Musgrave had come quickly behind her and imprisoned her hand with his own.
“Please don’t do that,” he said. He leaned over the settee, his face almost on a level with hers, his eyes meeting hers steadily. “I’ve no right to dictate to you... but I wish you wouldn’t smoke.”
A glint of laughter shone in Peggy’s eyes. The situation was growing increasingly funny. In her world, to see women smoke was such an ordinary matter that it had not struck her that anyone—not even John Musgrave—could possibly object. But John, of course, was Moresby, and Moresby had its traditions, and lived by them.
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s—unwomanly,” he returned seriously.
“Oh!” said Peggy. “What, I wonder, is conveyed exactly by the term ‘womanly’? I understood that that expression belonged to the Middle Ages.”
“I hope not,” Mr Musgrave said.