“Why, you are not dressed!” she said.
“I—I forgot,” he answered.
Something fell at his feet, it was a rose. She had cast it to him and now she was coming down the stairway towards him, where he stood, the rose in his hand and distraction at his heart.
“It is perfectly disgraceful of you,” said she, looking him up and down and taking the rose from him, “and there is no time to dress now; you usen’t to be as careless as that,” she put the rose in his coat. “I suppose it’s from living alone for a fortnight with Venetia—what would a month have done!” She pressed the rose flat with her little palm.
Then she slipped her fingers through the crook of his elbow and led him to the breakfast-room door.
She entered and he followed her.
The breakfast table had been reduced in size and they dined facing one another across a bowl of blush roses.
That dinner was not a conversational success on the part of Jones, a fact which she scarcely perceived, being in high spirits and full of information she was eager to impart.
It did not seem to matter to her in the least whether the flunkeys in waiting were listening or not, she talked of the family, of “your mater” and “Blunders” and “V” and other people, touching, it seemed on the most intimate matters and all with a lightness of tone and spirit that would have been delightful, no doubt, had he known the discussed ones more intimately, and had his mind been open to receive pleasurable impressions.
He would have to tell her directly after dinner the whole of his terrible story. It was as though Fate were saying to him, “You will have to kill her directly after dinner.”