“He said that we should ask you to dinner.”
“Then that’s all right,” put in Guy Overton, for he could not but notice the expression of disappointment on the face of the Australian. And when he noticed that expression, of course Amber noticed it.
“We hope that you will come and dine with us, Mr. Winwood,” she said.
“That is how things begin—and end, in England, I think,” cried Winwood with a laugh that had a note of contempt in its ring. “A dinner is supposed to do duty for welcome as well as for congé. I am always wondering which of the two every invitation that I get is meant to be—a welcome or the other. I knew a man who used to say that an invitation to dinner in England is the height of inhospitality.”
“I say, that’s a bit of freehand drawing, isn’t it?” said Guy. “You seem to have left your manners in the unclaimed luggage department, Winwood. Besides—well, I give a little dinner to my friends now and again—yes, in the Frangipanni: the only place where you get the real macaroni in London. Their Chianti is really not half bad, when you get——”
“I understand exactly what Mr. Winwood means, and I quite agree with him: a dinner is the most cordial form of inhospitality,” said Amber. “But if——”
“I really must ask your pardon, Miss Severn,” interposed Winwood. “I did not mean quite that——”
“You meant that you gathered from what I said that my father had no recollection of yours.”
“Exactly.”
“Then you were—not quite right. My father said he was sure that—that—yes, that you were certain to be able to convince him that he knew your father.”