Pryce tried to look intelligent, and nodded his head very fast to conceal the fear and confusion in his mind.
Amidst all these voices and festivities sat Oswald, with a vast paper cap shaped rather like the dome of a Russian church cocked over his blind side, listening distractedly, noting this and that, saying little, thinking many things.
The banquet ended at last, and every one drifted to the library.
Affairs hovered vaguely for a time. Peter handed cigarettes about. Some one started the gramophone with a Two Step that set every one tripping. Hetty with a flush on her cheek and a light in her eyes was keeping near Peter; she seized upon him now for a dance that was also an embrace. Peter laughed, nothing loath. “Oh! but this is glorious!” panted Hetty.
“Come and dance, too, Joan,” said Wilmington.
“It’s stuffy!” said Joan.
Oswald, contemplating a retreat to his study armchair, found her presently in the hall dressed to go out with Huntley.
“We’re going over the hill to see the sunset,” Joan explained. “It’s too stuffy in there.”
Oswald met Huntley’s large grey eye for a moment. He had an instinctive distrust of Huntley. But on the other hand, surely Joan had brains enough and fastidiousness enough not to lose her head with this—this phosphorescent fish of a novelist.
“Right-o,” said Oswald, and hovered doubtfully.