In a voice that strained without success to sound easy and natural, Lontaine said: "Ah, Fanny! dressed already, eh? Must be later than I thought."
"It's past half-past," Fanny replied without expression.
Lontaine glanced nervously at the back of his wrist. "Right you are. Never dreamed time was getting away from me like that."
"You have been ... busy, yes?" his wife enquired with a distinctly satiric accent.
"Rather. Gassing with Zinn, you know——"
"To be sure." The satiric inflexion was now more marked. "The life-saver."
"Not a bad name for him, that." Lontaine chuckled with, however, an unconvincing brevity. "Daresay Linda looks on the little beast in that light, at all events. Had a thousand details to discuss with him ... ah ... naturally."
"Naturally." Fanny's tone had become again illegible.
"That's what—ah—delayed me. Have to rush for it now—what?—or Summerlad'll be vexed."
"You really think so? With Cindy there to console him?"