Barbara came straight onwards, looking neither to the right nor to the left, till she reached her uncle, to whom she nodded. Then she walked to Alan and, offering him her hand, said:
“How do you do! Why did you not come over at lunch time? I wanted to play a round of golf with you this afternoon.”
Alan answered something about being busy at Yarleys.
“Yarleys!” she replied. “I thought that you lived in the City now, making money out of speculations, like everyone else that I know.”
“Why, Miss Champers,” broke in Sir Robert reproachfully, “I asked you to play a round of golf before tea and you would not.”
“No,” she answered, “because I was waiting for my cousin. We are better matched, Sir Robert.”
There was something in her voice, usually so soft and pleasant, as she spoke these words, something of steeliness and defiance that caused Alan to feel at once happy and uncomfortable. Apparently also it caused Aylward to feel angry, for he flashed a glance at Alan over her head of which the purport could not be mistaken, though his pale face remained as immovable as ever. “We are enemies. I hate you,” said that glance. Probably Barbara saw it; at any rate before either of them could speak again, she said:
“Thank goodness, there is dinner at last. Sir Robert, will you take me in, and, Alan, will you sit on the other side of me? My uncle will show the rest their places.”
The meal was long and magnificent; the price of each dish of it would have kept a poor family for a month, and on the cost of the exquisite wines they might have lived for a year or two. Also the last were well patronized by everyone except Barbara, who drank water, and Alan, who since his severe fever took nothing but weak whiskey and soda and a little claret. Even Aylward, a temperate person, absorbed a good deal of champagne. As a consequence the conversation grew animated, and under cover of it, while Sir Robert was arguing with his neighbour on the left, Barbara asked in a low voice:
“What is the row, Alan? Tell me, I can’t wait any longer.”