"She'll put up with me," said Matthew.
"No she won't," said Ann. "She'll snap your head off. Most of the 'putting up with' you'll have to do."
He tried to get between her and the window, but she kept her face close to the pane.
"You make me tired with Sylvia," she said. "It's about time you did know what she's like. She's just the commonplace, short-tempered, disagreeable-if-she-doesn't-get-her-own-way, unreasonable woman. Only more so."
He drew her away from the window by brute force.
"So you're Sylvia," he said.
"I thought that would get it into your head," said Ann.
It was not at all the way she had meant to break it to him. She had meant the conversation to be chiefly about Sylvia. She had a high opinion of Sylvia, a much higher opinion than she had of Ann Kavanagh. If he proved to be worthy of her—of Sylvia, that is, then, with the whimsical smile that she felt belonged to Sylvia, she would remark quite simply, "Well, what have you got to say to her?"
What had happened to interfere with the programme was Ann Kavanagh. It seemed that Ann Kavanagh had disliked Matthew Pole less than she had thought she did. It was after he had sailed away that little Ann Kavanagh had discovered this. If only he had shown a little more interest in, a little more appreciation of, Ann Kavanagh! He could be kind and thoughtful in a patronising sort of way. Even that would not have mattered if there had been any justification for his airs of superiority.
Ann Kavanagh, who ought to have taken a back seat on this occasion, had persisted in coming to the front. It was so like her.