Sir Philip nodded.
“Yes. She’d have kept him straight,” he said gloomily. “Whereas Doreen Neville’s the hot-house plant type—just the opposite. No good to Tony at all.”
“I’m not so sure, Philip. Sometimes the need to care for and protect some one weaker than himself helps to steady a man down more than anything else. Ah!” Lady Susan broke off, her face brightening. “Here is Ann—with Robin. I told them to come early.”
Sir Philip put up his monocle and glared in the direction of the new-comers. Yes, Ann was certainly thinner—too thin, perhaps—though, as far as appearances were concerned, he thought the change had only served to accentuate the charming angles of her face and give an additional grace to the boyishly slender lines of her figure.
Any one less like a love-lorn maiden than Ann looked at that moment could hardly be imagined. She was wearing a charming frock the colour of a pool of deep green sea-water, with a handful of orange-golden poppies clustered at the waist, and as the lights flickered over her, from the swathed gold-brown of her hair to the tips of her small gold shoes, she was as detail-perfect as a woman who hadn’t a single care in life. The simple, appealing black frock generally adopted by the heroine in fiction who has been crossed in love did not allure Ann in the very least. Whatever happened to her, she would always confront the world with a brave face. And even if her small, individual barque of life were hopelessly foundered she would at least go down with colours flying.
Nevertheless, to the discerning eye the alteration in her was very palpable. In repose her mouth fell into lines of quiet endurance, and her eyes held a look of deep sadness. But, fortunately for most of us, the discerning eye is a rarity, and in public Ann rarely allowed herself to lapse into one of those moments of abstracted thought when the unguarded expression of the face gives away the secrets of the heart.
She greeted Sir Philip with all her old gaiety, and, when he told her she was much too thin, laughed at him gently.
“Don’t be a fuss-pot, dear godparent,” she adjured him. “I was never one of the fat kine, and really I’m very glad of it. You can dress ever so much more economically when you’re thin, you know, and that’s quite a consideration these days.”
“Are you—do you mean—look here, Ann,” he floundered awkwardly. “Are you hard up?”
She laughed outright.