"I'm afraid I'm not a very gay companion for a beautiful young woman. You mustn't mind my paying you compliments." Aliette had raised a protesting hand at the word "beautiful." "When I was your age, compliments were in vogue. Nowadays they're out of fashion--like good manners."
"Surely good manners are never out of fashion," said Aliette. "Only--like fashions--they change."
Lady Simeon veered toward them, but diverted her course. They talked on, drawn to each other by a kindred obsession--Ronnie.
"I'd love to ask her what she thought of him," mused Julia Cavendish. "I simply daren't mention her son," mused Aliette Brunton.
Thus the man found them when he came upstairs. They made an exquisite picture, there, under the green--his mother, dignified, strong (not wishing to let him guess her weariness, she had pulled herself together at his approach), the halo of intellectual achievement setting her apart from every other woman in the room; and the vivid, exquisite, but equally dignified creature at his mother's side.
"You don't often smoke, mater." He felt consoled that these two should be together. For the last twenty minutes the sight of Hector Brunton--holding forth, loud-voiced, over a cigar--had made him feel a little guilty.
"Mrs. Brunton insisted. Come and sit down, Ronnie. Unless"--servants with card-tables made a belated appearance--"you want to play bridge."
"I'd just as soon talk."
They made place for him. He and his mother began to discuss their fellow-guests, critically, but without malice. Listening, Aliette felt like an interloper. Even if she had been unmarried, how could she interpose her love--for it was love, she knew that now, knew it irremediably--between these two? Her mind reacted from happiness to depression.
He said to her, "You're looking very thoughtful."