“I think everything’s right,” said Ann Veronica, with the roaming eye of a capable but not devoted house-mistress.
“I wonder if they will seem altered,” she remarked for the third time.
“There I can’t help,” said Capes.
He walked through a wide open archway, curtained with deep-blue curtains, into the apartment that served as a reception-room. Ann Veronica, after a last survey of the dinner appointments, followed him, rustling, came to his side by the high brass fender, and touched two or three ornaments on the mantel above the cheerful fireplace.
“It’s still a marvel to me that we are to be forgiven,” she said, turning.
“My charm of manner, I suppose. But, indeed, he’s very human.”
“Did you tell him of the registry office?”
“No—o—certainly not so emphatically as I did about the play.”
“It was an inspiration—your speaking to him?”
“I felt impudent. I believe I am getting impudent. I had not been near the Royal Society since—since you disgraced me. What’s that?”