Stuart repeated puzzled: “Do hoofs have hilts? do hilts have hoofs—hooves—hilts—I say, that’s not a bad pub., the ‘Hoof and Hilt.’ Shall we put it in the Room, Merle?”
“We have seven already,” she reminded him reproachfully.
... Grown-ups, grown-ups both of them! And what was the good of forcing the play? To allow love to happen, just like other grown-ups—Merle’s lip curled. Not a man or woman in the assembled crowd but had at some time of their lives succumbed to this most ordinary passion. But the trio had boasted of their difference!... Grown-ups.
Stuart began to spin a marvellous tissue of absurdities relative to their supposed stay with his sister Dorothy in Devon. The Spanish waiter came and went with dishes. In the gleaming mirror, three marionettes talked and laughed and gesticulated, faithfully mimicking the originals at their side. At the side of the gleaming mirror, three pairs of eyes watched the marionettes, and marvelled at their likeness to life. At the table and in the mirror, three ghosts were chanting a dirge for the playtime that was over. But Merle alone heard them.
... “It was such a grotesque nightmare,” Peter was saying; “I was one side of the moon, and a cow the other. And every time the cow jumped over the moon, as cows will, I jumped as well, so as always to be on the other side of the moon to the cow. I’m not partial to cows. But it was a fearful strain, watching its face, and trying to guess from the expression exactly when it intended to jump.”
“I should have thought the double motion would become mechanical at last, like the Flip-Flap. Did you know that Mrs. Trenner asked for my address before I left, that she might send me a lobster fresh from its native soil? And can you imagine my mother when it turns up? and the butler? I haven’t the remotest notion how to account for it; Orson Manor is miles from the sea, and Dorothy never sends us lobsters.”
Suddenly, from being especially flushed and talkative and brilliant, Peter dropped to a queer moodiness; mouth sullen; feet swinging rebelliously against the leg of the table. She wanted to be alone with Stuart—wanted it—wanted it. Merle’s presence filled her with an intense exasperation. She tried at first to control these sensations; the knowledge that they were shared by Stuart would have gone far towards soothing them. But Stuart betrayed nothing of his point of view that night; from the mask of his features, he might have been totally unaware of aught unusual in the atmosphere. His manner to both girls was equally charming ... a skilled juggler, he tossed his ivory balls.
“I only succeeded once in drawing a salt into conversation,” said Merle gravely; “I couldn’t understand a word of what he was talking about, except that it related mainly to whales. So I prattled intelligently in reply, of harpoons and blubber—oh, quite professional. Peter told me afterwards that he was referring to his summer holiday at Llandudno.”
... “For God’s sake, be quiet!” prayed Peter inaudibly. All these inanities—when she and Stuart might already be embarking on the perilous seas of their double adventure. Would this ghastly meal never be over? And then what lay in store? Would he contrive somehow to snatch a moment alone with her? Surely ... somehow.