“The poor old cat looked hungry,” said the Vicar after a pause.
“Ah, I thought you must have given them to the cat,” said Mrs. Jebb. “But at a luncheon party—however, in a bachelor’s establishment——”
She evidently felt that Andy had not known how to behave, and that made the next step easier.
“I fear,” she continued, “that Mrs. Thorpe is to blame for what might have been a catastrophe if the fowls had been—er—entirely dismembered. I forget if it is larks, or a woodcock, or what, that you do cook in that way, though I never thought it really nice. However, as everything went off all right——” She paused for Andy’s reply, having put the matter, it must be confessed, with some delicacy.
“Oh, excellently,” said Andy. “You must have heard us laughing.”
“Yes. If there had been champagne—but there wasn’t——”
Again the point of a conversation passed unspoken, and then Andy pulled his paper towards him with such determination that Mrs. Jebb fluttered from the room.
Ten minutes later she tripped back, bearing a vase of roses.
“I always think a man’s room looks so desolate without flowers. As if he had no woman to care for him,” and she placed the vase close to Andy’s elbow.
He thanked her briefly without looking up. But when she had gone out again he stared blankly at the print on the opposite wall.