Also she forgot sometimes that they were playing and broke into sentences that had to be instantly checked—as, for instance: “Oh, I saw Mrs.———— I'm so sorry, it 's my lead.”
“I believe this term.... Oh! I beg your pardon.... What are trumps?”
Every now and again she gazed at the peacock screen, and the clock, and the dark corner of the room where there was a little water-color in a gilt frame, and they gave her comfort.
The end of the rubber came, and Mrs. Dormer refused to play any more; they had had magnificent cards, but she had lost three shillings. She wouldn't look at Mr. Perrin. He stood nervously moving one foot against the other, pulling his mustache.
“No, really I'm afraid we must go. You 've finished your rubber, Mrs. Comber? Yes, we ought to have won.... No, I can't think how it was.”
“Considering the way my wife's been playing,” said Freddie Comber brutally, “I think it is just as well to stop.”
Mrs. Comber chattered with amazing confusion as she helped Mrs. Dormer to get her cloak. In her eyes something bright was shining, and every now and again she put up her band to push back some of her black hair (always on the edge of a perilous descent) with a little, desperate action.
“Good night. I'm so glad you've enjoyed it. We meet to-morrow, of course, although I can't think why they aren't going to play golf—there's going to be such a storm in an hour or two, isn't there?—probably because it's football to-morrow afternoon. Yes, good-by.” Everyone departed. Mr. Perrin stood desperately with something going up and down in his throat. He had a sentence in his head: “Please, Miss Desart, do let me see you back to the lodge.” (Mrs. Comber had had to plant her out there to sleep because there was no room in their own tiny house.) He meant to say it, he wanted to say it. He clutched his mortar-board frantically in his band. Then suddenly be beard Traill's voice:
“Oh! please, Miss Desart—of course, I'll see you back. Good night, Mrs. Comber. Thank you so much—I've loved it. Good night, Comber. Night, Perrin. Look out, Miss Desart, it's dark.”
Perrin felt his band just touched by Miss Desart's, and her voice, “Good night, Mr. Perrin.”