"I'm sorry," said Gareth gently. How hot it was. How hot—she was.
"And now Lulu has come without Jim—when one only puts up with her for the sake of Jim! And you'll have to see her home."
To Kathleen there were no molehills in a world of mountains.
"It doesn't matter. I hope you started without me?"
"No; we didn't; we're waiting. Come along—come along. Must you go up to wash?"
His hands felt sticky with the heat and the day's work. "Afraid so. I shan't be a minute." He felt her reluctant glance follow him up the stairs, measure the seconds while he plunged his throbbing head into cold water, tug him down again to the dining-room where she and Lulu Collins were already in their places at table.
Mr. and Mrs. Collins had at one time been their neighbours. And though they had moved since then several times—they were of the cheerful but shoddy type who instantly rent a house on the strength of a fiver unexpectedly turning up, and then quite gaily effect what is known as a "moonlight flit" when their fluctuating fortunes wavered downwards again—yet a spasmodic intimacy was still kept up.
"Jim would have come," explained Lulu in voluble apology, as Gareth took up the carving-knife and attacked the mutton; "but he's most frightfully busy. I oughtn't to tell you—but ... well, you've heard of this huge scheme they've got on hand for that new sort of wonderful photography?—well, Jim's in that, and of course it means a fortune to us. We're jogging along anyhow just now ... but in six weeks or so.... And then there's that other thing too—you know!—that's just going to come off with a tremendous bang. But you won't breathe a word of it, will you?"
Automatically the Temples made their vows of silence. Lulu's plucky optimism, her continual brag of her husband as the Power Behind in some gigantic experiment, social, financial, or theatrical, was too often unfounded to inspire the congratulatory awe it demanded. Jim Collins was a nice little chap; but Lulu was fourth-rate. Her illusions were fourth-rate. Her clothes were fourth-rate. She prided herself on a knack of turning "bits of things" into a thoroughly up-to-date rig-out: "Kath, did you notice my hat? I s'pose you thought it was new. Not it! My dear, I made it out of that piece of lace on my blue silk, and the remains of that velveteen dressing-gown Mabel gave me. And I'm sure no one would guess, would they?"... Everyone would guess; she always looked tawdry, fly-away; not dirty—but never definitely clean. Kathleen recognized now all the portions of her garments, and remembered the various conjunctions of bad taste in which they had already figured ... bits of trimming; bits of bead and feather and lace.... Lulu could have stood as a symbolic figure personifying "the Last Day of the Sale."...
"Gareth," said Kathleen, watching critically his incompetence with the joint, "when do you get your holidays?"