“Nor drink, nor gamble.”
“Perhaps you swear,” suggested Hebe, with elaborate mischievousness. “One must have some vices.”
“I don’t agree with you,” snapped Lady Denby, relieved to find that they had almost reached the door.
“Well, what do you do, then?” queried Hebe, in a tone that was louder than was at all necessary.
Lady Denby stepped into the vestibule. In a space momentarily cleared, she turned and faced her tormentor.
“What do I do?” she repeated. “I mind my own business . . . wear untransparent petticoats, and . . . sleep in my own husband’s bed!”
CHAPTER 26.
Dilling had refused to go to the wedding. Work was his excuse. He intended to clear up the accumulation of departmental business that lay massed in an orderly disarray upon his desk.
But he didn’t work. Each attempt proved to be a failure. He was conscious of fatigue—or, if not precisely that—of the ennui one feels when work is universally suspended, as on a rainy, dispiriting holiday.
The outer office was hushed and empty. That Azalea’s absence could so utterly bereave the atmosphere, struck him as preposterous, an incomprehensible thing. He struggled against it, but without success. He was lapped about by a feeling of isolation, of stark desolation. Staring at Azalea’s vacant chair, it seemed as if he stood in the midst of a dead and frozen world. With an effort at pulling himself together, he closed the door and returned to his position by the window.