He paused. Wareham did not feel the necessity for speaking.
“Lady and Miss Dalrymple, and half-a-dozen others.”
The half-dozen others multiplied before dinner. The great drawing-room with its fine Gainsboroughs looked cheerfully full. Lady Fanny welcomed Wareham warmly, and put a dozen questions about her friends.
“You saw them yesterday?”
“And am the bearer of lost property.”
“My thimble! Thank you a thousand times. Sad to say, I had never missed it; but I must not let Millie know that, or I shall be scolded for my idleness. Oh, if you had only persuaded them to come with you!” She hoped that Wareham’s heart echoed the wish, and would have been mightily disappointed could she have peeped at it. Where was Anne? Not yet in the room. Mrs Martyn, however, smiled at him from a sofa, and he was obliged to seat himself by her side, and to endure a characteristic greeting.
“I hope you don’t object, Mr Wareham; but it almost gave me a shock to hear you were coming. I knew the sight of you would bring back that nightmare time at Bergen.”
“Did you mind it so much?”
“How can you ask? I tell Lord Milborough he saved my life, for if the yacht had not been there, I might have hung myself. That poor young man! You never ought to have told him to come out. It wasn’t fair on us.”
Wareham sat mute. She glanced at him, and played with her great fan.