“What would you do?” She put it as if she couldn’t possibly imagine.
“I’d speak to him.”
“To Harold?”
“No—that might just put it into his head.” Brookenham walked up and down a little with his hands in his pockets, after which, with a complete concealment of the steps of the transition, “Where are we dining to-night?” he brought out.
“Nowhere, thank heaven. We grace our own board.”
“Oh—with those fellows, as you said, and Jane?”
“That’s not for dinner. The Baggers and Mary Pinthorpe and—upon my word I forget.”
“You’ll see when she comes,” suggested Brookenham, who was again at the window.
“It isn’t a she—it’s two or three he’s, I think,” his wife replied with her indifferent anxiety. “But I don’t know what dinner it is,” she bethought herself; “it may be the one that’s after Easter. Then that one’s this one,” she added with her eyes once more on her book.
“Well, it’s a relief to dine at home”—and Brookenham faced about. “Would you mind finding out?” he asked with some abruptness.