Howard found her better company. She talked to him now, seeming to insist on talking. He told her about how he thought game should be cooked, about the new club rules for membership, about the things he was interested in. She answered him, played up to him, her mind alert, her eyes casually now on that other end of the table.
“We’ll get up a party and go,” she heard Dick say. They were drinking coffee. Fliss was devoting herself more to Gordon. There was a smoldering look in Gordon’s eyes that Cecily read and that it shamed her to read. He looked as if the presence of people, of Matthew himself, hardly interested him. He wanted to slip his arm down close around her, bend his head lower. Dick was competing for her favor, actually competing.
“We’ll get up a party,” he repeated. “There’s a tiled floor and the funniest nigger band you ever heard. You’ll love it, Fliss.”
“All right,” said Fliss. “Will you come along, Cecily?”
That was to demonstrate her power, thought Cecily. Fliss was asking her to a party with her own husband.
“If I can,” she answered coldly. “If I get a cook and can manage to get out.”
A little smile of pitying superiority to one so tied down by domestic affairs showed on Fliss’s face.
“Miserable luck, Cecily.” Then to Dick, “Do you starve without a cook, poor Dick?”
Like a flash Cecily struck back. Cool and icy and penetrating her voice carried down the table length.
“I think I’ll have my old cook back shortly. She is nursing your mother now, you know, Fliss.” And to her neighbor quite clearly, “She had to go to Mrs. Horton, of course, because she is her cousin.”