'Except her looks! The world can't spare the pretty women!'
So far the lightness of both voices had been charming; but a new one coming from the other side of the table had the heavy acidity in it of wine that should sparkle and does not; for the owner being Mrs. Carruthers's recognised rival, sinned against the first principles of badinage by importing spite into it.
'Surely that's been said before. Every one knows cooks are the devil; mine is, anyhow!'
'The devil!' echoed little Mrs. Carruthers, eyeing her adversary--whose bad dinners were a byword--with a charming surprise; 'I wonder at your saying so. Why, the devil tempts you, and you do eat; and--and some cooks disgust you, and you don't!'
Her antagonist s protest that the quotation applied to Eve, was lost in the laugh, during which Jack Raymond--who had found it impossible to evade Sir George Arbuthnot's conscientious gratitude for Jerry's rescue as embodied in an invitation to dinner-said to his neighbour--
'You think, Miss Drummond, that we Anglo-Indians talk a lot of rubbish.'
He, himself, had given her small opportunity of judging, for he had been very silent all through the meal; in fact, a trifle sulky. Why, he could not decide, and it had annoyed him that he should be conscious at once of resentment and relief at the etiquette of precedence which sent the secretary to the club so far from the beautiful face at the head of the table. And Lesley, for her part, after the manner of modern girls, had accepted his silence calmly, not troubling herself to amuse one who did not trouble to amuse her; so she had eaten her dinner peacefully, without any reference to her neighbour.
He, however, had been unable to attain this philosophic standard. This indifference of the independent girl of the world, who, conscious of an assured position even as an unmarried woman, treats man as an unnecessary, if, on the whole a not unpleasant adjunct to a life that is complete without him, was quite new to Jack Raymond, who had not been home for fourteen years. He admired it frankly; felt that it suited her, suited the refined curve of the long throat, the faint droop at the corners of the mouth, the smooth coils of hair. The chill dignity of it all, he realised--for he was a quick judge in such matters--did not mean anything personal. It was not he with whom, as he phrased it, she desired to have no truck, but with the whole creation of such as he; or such, rather, as she chose to consider him. For it was evident that, despite her almost magisterial calm, she still used the woman's privilege of making her own heroes and villains. In reality, she could know nothing about him! Should he tell her something? The question had occurred to him, and had found answer in his remark.
She answered the challenge with a half-bored smile.
'I suppose you like it; but it does seem odd to an outsider in what is virtually a picked society. And then there is so much to talk about seriously in India.'