Mrs. Walbridge had left the room, and Walbridge stood leaning against the door in a pose often drawn by du Maurier in the eighties.
"I say," Wick whispered to Grisel, hoping to make her laugh, "your father is most awfully good-looking. Perfectly splendid to-night, isn't he?"
She gave a little pettish start. "Oh, do be quiet," she snapped. "If you knew how sick and tired I was of having father's good looks drummed into me——"
She rose and marched over to the chair her mother had left, and sat down, staring at her father, as if she disliked him intensely.
Wick sat still, feeling very much injured, for, after all, most girls would like to hear their father praised—at least, most pretty girls. Of course, if she had been plain, he reflected gravely, one could understand her being so shirty.
As Jenny stopped playing, Mrs. Walbridge came back into the room, and approached Mrs. Crichell.
"I'm so sorry," she said kindly, "but someone has just telephoned to your husband from his mother's house and asked if he's not going on there."
Mrs. Crichell unfurled her fan, which was of black feathers like some big wing. "Dear me, how tiresome!" she said. "He's having such a good time, sketching Maud, and she doesn't even see him. Walter," she called.
Crichell turned. "Yes?"
She gave him the message, and he rose without any comment. "You'll let me take this magazine with me, Mrs. Walbridge?" he asked.