She replied pertly: "Not neccessarily at all, Mr. Speed. Do you play an instrument?"
"The piano a little."
The Head interposed with: "Um, yes—a wonderful instrument. We must have some music after dinner, eh, Lydia?—Do you like Mendelssohn?" (He gave the word an exaggeratedly German pronunciation). "My daughter plays some of the—um—the Lieder ohne Wörte—um, yes—the Songs Without Words, you know."
"I like some of Mendelssohn," said Speed.
He looked across at the girl. She was blushing furiously, with her eyes still furtively on Clare.
VII
After dinner they all returned to the drawing-room, where inferior coffee was distributed round in absurdly diminutive cups, Potter attitudinising over it like a high-priest performing the rites of some sinister religious ceremony. Clare and Helen sat together on one of the settees, discoursing inaudibly and apparently in private; the Head commenced an anecdote that was suggested by Speed's glance at a photograph on the mantelpiece, a photograph of a coloured man attired in loose-fitting cotton draperies. "My servant when I was in India," the Head had informed Speed. "An excellent fellow—most—um, yes—faithful and reliable. One of the earliest of my converts. I well remember the first morning after I had engaged him to look after me he woke me up with the words 'Chota Hazra, sahib'—"
Speed feigning interest, managed to keep his eyes intermittently on the two girls. He wondered if they were discussing him.
"I said—'I can't—um—see Mr. Chota Hazra this time in the morning.'"
Speed nodded with a show of intelligence, and then, to be on the safe side if the joke had been reached, gave a slight titter.