Whereupon the Snooker party broke up; the men wriggling into their dinner-jackets, and Concha standing by the gramophone and swaying up and down as she hummed the latest jazz tune.
Guy came up to Teresa. “About Oscar Wilde—I do want to have a talk to you about him. Do you think—well, brilliancy—it has a certain literary value, don’t you think?”
“Yes; I suppose so,” she answered absently; she was watching Concha and Rory giggling by the gramophone.
“Well, I am going to bed,” said the Doña, and, kissing her hand to Arnold, who was still knocking about the balls, she left the room, followed by Jollypot.
“Well, that was a very successful game,” said Dick.
“What about another one? You’ve got to play this time, Munroe.”
“Yes, another game. I’ve never seen a game of Snooker over so quickly ... owing to the amazing brilliance of our Captain Dundas,” cried Arnold.
So they started another game, this time including David; and as it had been decided that Rory was too good for parlour-billiards, he sat down on the sofa beside Teresa.
They began to talk—about the War, of course: all the old platitudes—the “team-spirit,” for instance. “It’s football, you know, that makes us good fighters. It’s about the only thing we learn at school—the team-spirit. It teaches us to sacrifice stunts and showy play and that sort of thing to the whole.”