She looked vaguely at her short, fat fingers: her hands were like a baby's in shape.
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "He's an awful unreasonable fellow, Henry is. He gets into such tantrums—I don't dare tell him about Mr. Winch—that's the gentleman I was speaking of. We're going to be married in the fall. He's in a livery-stable: I guess you probably noticed it as you came along Sixth Avenue—Judd and Winch. He's only junior partner, but he knows as much about running a real swell funeral as any of the uptown men—Mr. Judd says so. Henry's afraid of a horse, you know. It don't seem quite natural for a man not to know about horses, does it, now?"
"If you had only waited till his book came out," said Delafield tentatively. As he looked at her he was conscious of a ridiculous satisfaction that such a fine woman should know her own mind so perfectly. She was a very complete creature, in her way. He realised that in this strangely assorted quartette he and she were involuntarily on one side of an intangible line, his niece and their unintelligible protegé on the other.
"Wait? But I did wait. I waited over a week," she explained, "and then I couldn't stand it any longer. He'd drive me to drink. For one thing, Henry's changed so. When we first knew him he was really as entertaining a gentleman as I ever saw—and I've had a great deal of attention. Why, we'd sit around and laugh till we nearly died, he'd say such ridiculous things. He was so different. Ma used to say if he was much funnier she'd think he'd ought to have a keeper! The way he'd go on——!"
Anne had turned her back and was looking steadily at the room they had left. Pippa and Delafield might have been alone.
"But when we got engaged, he seemed to change, somehow. I don't know if you've noticed it——"
Delafield nodded.
"Well, that's what I mean. I didn't care any more about him, then. I guess I sort of woke up," she laughed into his eyes. "He tires me to death with how he'll shoot himself," she added; "they always say that, you know, but they never do."
Anne moved toward the door and Delafield followed her.