"Who sent for you?"
"Lord John."
"Yes, I thought so. Pretty state of things with them all hanging round like this waiting for me to die—never felt better in my life."
"So I see—delighted. I'll go."
"Not a bit of it. Stay and talk. I feel like telling someone what I think of things, although you've heard it all often enough before. But the truth is, Christopher, I did have a nasty dream—a very nasty dream—and the nastiest part of it was that I couldn't remember it when I woke up.
"But it's the weather—I was frightened for a minute although I wouldn't have anyone else know."
"But you had a good dinner."
"Splendid dinner, thank you."
She lay back in bed and looked at him; delightful to think that she would play a little game with him to-morrow; he would in all probability be angry when he knew—that would be very amusing; delightful, too, to think that, just when she was afraid that she had seriously alienated Roddy away from her, he should write and say that he needed her. She would go to-morrow and would be exceedingly pleasant to him and would reassure him about Rachel....
Yes, she had seldom felt so genial. She told Christopher stories of men and women whom she had known, wicked stories, gay stories, cruel stories, and her eyes twinkled and her fingers sparkled and her old withered face poked out above the dressing-gown, with the white hair, fine and proud beneath the lace cap.