“It wasn’t anything worth repeating, Mrs Verity. Do go on with what you were going to say—‘I wonder if——’”
“No, indeed, that can quite well wait till you say what you were going to say.”
“But really—I’ve forgotten it,” cried Deb, by now hysterically incapable of the “Yes, aren’t they?” of her original intention.
“My fault; how could I——”
“Here’s your tea, mother;” Antonia smiled mischievously down on the punctilious little lady’s distress.
Deb stretched her limbs lazily, without displaying, however, much determination to move. She was rather hoping that Antonia would invite her to stay. But:
“I have to be going out presently, but in an opposite direction, or I’d ask you to wait for me.”
“Are you supping with Gillian? I thought you told me you expected her here; Miss Marcus, do you not agree with me that Gillian Sherwood is quite a remarkable character?”
An almost imperceptible contraction of Antonia’s brows expressed impatience. “What was the lecture like?” she asked. Deb pondered on the unknown Gillian, hardly hearing Mrs Verity’s painstaking description. This was one of the moments when she was convinced of mystery in the background of Antonia’s life. Why had she never mentioned a Gillian who had a remarkable character, with whom she was on terms of supper? Why did she apparently object so strongly to her mother’s introduction of the name? Why was she on certain occasions so anxious to rid herself of Deb’s company? Why was she so vague and elusive as to the manner in which she had spent the foregoing day, or intended to spend the morrow? Why had she once said casually “Don’t drop in here without letting me know, Deb. Always ’phone. I’m out such a lot, it’s hardly worth your while to chance it....” Antonia herself was always “chancing it” at Montagu Hall.
A second door in the studio led to a small garden. Beyond the panes a tall young man suddenly loomed, and rapped three times, as might a conspirator.