“Yes, I slept badly.” They were down again, those blinds! She saw him drop them down as though by magic. He was playing his game.
“Well, next time you must wake me and I’ll come too,” she said. His sense of humour was touched at the idea of her coming down at five in the morning, but he said nothing.
The knowledge, the increasing certainty that there was something in it all, was choking her so that she found it exceedingly difficult to eat. But that she should be baffled by James was so incredible an idea that she concealed her rising temper.
She nodded gaily at Mrs. Lawrence, who swam towards their table with outstretched hands and a blue scarf floating like wings behind her.
“My dear!”
“My dear!”
“But you generally have it upstairs, I thought . . .”
“Yes, I know; but such a day, one couldn’t really . . .”
“Yes, I was awake ever so . . . But James has been bathing. No, Lucy, sit still, dear, until we’ve finished. Bathing before breakfast. I think I really must to-morrow.”
Epsom closed about the table.