"It's the woman you travelled down from Bishop's Auckland with. On the day war was declared."
Tietjens turned solidly round in his chair. She knew he would do that out of stiff politeness, so it meant nothing.
His face was whitish in the pale light, but it was always whitish since he had come back from France and passed his day in a tin hut among dust heaps. He said:
"So you saw me!" But that, too, was mere politeness.
She said:
"Of course the whole crowd of us from Claudine's saw you! It was old Campion who said she was a Mrs. . . . I've forgotten the name."
Tietjens said:
"I imagined he would know her. I saw him looking in from the corridor!"
She said:
"Is she your mistress, or only Macmaster's, or the mistress of both of you? It would be like you to have a mistress in common. . . . She's got a mad husband, hasn't she? A clergyman."