“I fear,” he regretted, “that I have not had [Pg 134]that pleasure. I shall hope now to be able to make up for my previous loss. You live in town?”
“The greater part of the year,” said Anne. “I spend three or four months in the country.”
“Which, no doubt, you like,” replied General Carden courteously. “Being young, you are able to enjoy it. I prefer London. I only leave town during August, when I go abroad. And the whole time I wish I were in England. An unprofitable method of spending a yearly month of one’s life. Once I—” He broke off. “I am too old for travelling now,” he ended.
“Isn’t that rather—nonsense?” said Anne, with a faint hint of a smile, and glancing at the upright figure beside her.
General Carden straightened his shoulders. She was candid—absolutely candid—in her remark.
“Very charming of you to suggest it, Lady Anne,” he said, and he tried unavailingly to keep the pleasure out of his voice. “Perhaps after all——”
“Yes,” smiled Anne, “after all, you don’t find it quite as disagreeable as you pretend.”
“Ah, well!” he said.
There was a pleasant little silence. Anne watched the groups of people in the room, sitting or standing in intimate conversation. There was an atmosphere of airy gaiety about the place, a lightness, an effervescence. Listlessness or boredom was entirely absent. In one of the farthest groups was her friend, Muriel Lancing, with whom she was staying. She was an elfin-like, dainty figure in a green dress, on which shone a brilliant gleam of diamonds. Muriel herself was sparkling to-night like a bit of escaped quicksilver.
Rather nearer was another woman, tall and massive. Her figure was undoubtedly good, but her pose gave one the faintest suspicion that she was conscious of that fact. She reminded one of a statue which had become slightly animated by some accident. Apparently, too, she had never forgotten the fact of having been a statue, and wished other people not to forget it either. Her face was a faultless oval, and her hair worn in a Madonna-like style. But beyond the oval and the hair the Madonna-like impression ceased. Her face was hard, there [Pg 136]was none of the exquisite warmth, the tender humanity seen in the paintings of the Virgin Mother.