‘I say,’ he said, under the cover of the general prittle-prattle all around them, ‘do you know who everyone is? I only recognize Wyatt and young Michael Prenderby over there. Who are the others? I arrived too late to be introduced.’
The girl shook her head.
‘I don’t know many myself,’ she murmured. ‘That’s Anne Edgeware sitting next to Wyatt – she’s rather pretty, don’t you think? She’s a Stage-cum-Society person; you must have heard of her.’
Abbershaw glanced across the table, where a striking young woman in a pseudo-Victorian frock and side curls sat talking vivaciously to the young man at her side. Some of her conversation floated across the table to him. He turned away again.
‘I don’t think she’s particularly pretty,’ he said with cheerful inconsequentialness. ‘Who’s the lad?’
‘That boy with black hair talking to her? That’s Martin. I don’t know his other name, he was only introduced to me in the hall. He’s just a stray young man, I think.’ She paused and looked round the table.
‘You know Michael, you say. The little round shy girl next him is Jeanne, his fiancée; perhaps you’ve met her.’
George shook his head.
‘No,’ he said, ‘but I’ve wanted to; I take a personal interest in Michael’ – he glanced at the fair, sharp-featured young man as he spoke – ‘he’s only just qualified as an M.D., you know, but he’ll go far. Nice chap, too . . . Who is the young prize-fighter on the girl’s left?’
Meggie shook her sleek bronze head at him reprovingly as she followed his glance to the young giant a little higher up the table. ‘You mustn’t say that,’ she whispered. ‘He’s our star turn this party. That’s Chris Kennedy, the Cambridge rugger blue.’