“Guilty,” he pleaded, smiling still more naïvely.
One had expected something much less natural in a novelist.
“I loved it,” said Joan, and Huntley was hers to do what she liked with. Joan’s idea of a proper conversation required it to be in a corner. “Do Sheldricks never sit down?” she asked. “I’ve been standing all the evening.”
“They can’t,” he said confidentially. “They’re the other sort of Dutch doll, the cheap sort, that hasn’t got joints at the knees.”
“Antonia sometimes leans against the wall.”
“Her utmost. The next thing would be to sit on the floor with her legs straight out. I’ve seen her do that. But there is a sort of bench on the staircase landing.”
Thither they made their way, and there presently Peter found them.
He found them because he was making for that very corner in the company of Sydney Sheldrick. “Hullo!” said Sydney. “That you, Joan?”
“We’ve taken this corner for the evening,” said Huntley, laying a controlling hand on Joan’s pretty wrist.
Joan and Peter regarded each other darkly.