To the gloating, cruel tones that had asked:
"You know what that means?" Macmaster had answered clearly, but with the snappy intonation of a reproving Don:
"Of course I know what it means. It's no discovery!" That was exactly the right note. Tietjens—and Mrs. Duchemin too—could hear Mr. Duchemin, invisible behind his rampart of blue spikes and silver, give the answering snuffle of a reproved schoolboy. A hard-faced, small man, in grey tweed that buttoned, collar-like, tight round his throat, standing behind the invisible chair, gazed straight forward into infinity.
Tietjens said to himself:
"By God! Parry! the Bermondsey light middle-weight! He's there to carry Duchemin off if he becomes violent!"
During the quick look that Tietjens took round the table Mrs. Duchemin gave, sinking lower in her chair, a short gasp of utter relief. Whatever Macmaster was going to think of her, he thought now. He knew the worst! It was settled, for good or ill. In a minute she would look round at him.
Tietjens said:
"It's all right, Macmaster will be splendid. We had a friend up at Cambridge with your husband's tendencies, and Macmaster could get him through any social occasion. . . . Besides, we're all gentlefolk here!"
He had seen the Rev. Horsley and Mrs. Wannop both interested in their plates. Of Miss Wannop he was not so certain. He had caught, bent obviously on himself, from large, blue eyes, an appealing glance. He said to himself: "She must be in the secret. She's appealing to me not to show emotion and upset the apple-cart! It is a shame that she should be here: a girl!" and into his answering glance he threw the message: "It's all right as far as this end of the table is concerned."
But Mrs. Duchemin had felt come into herself a little stiffening of morale. Macmaster by now knew the worst; Duchemin was quoting snuffingly to him the hot licentiousness of the Trimalchion of Petronius; snuffing into Macmaster's ear. She caught the phrase: Festinans, puer calide. . . . Duchemin, holding her wrist with the painful force of the maniac, had translated it to her over and over again. . . . No doubt, that too, this hateful man beside her would have guessed!