“I don’t dispute the fact that they would have been of use to you and Major Bunbury,” replied her host, cutting the wires of the second bottle of champagne.
“It’s so contemptible of you not to learn the bike,” she went on, with a manner half discontented, half brusque. “It’s all prejudice.”
“I’m beginning to cultivate prejudice,” said Glasgow, retaining the cork with skill, “it’s so respectable. Churchwardens and generals and heads of departments are always prejudiced.”
“I didn’t know that you were so wonderfully addicted to respectability,” said Lady Susan, with a laugh and a look that made Slaney feel rather hot—“since when, may I ask?” Lady Susan was too careless and too little disposed for the toils of finesse to foster a flirtation for its own sake; when she did find a sufficing motive, these same qualities created a startling directness of method.
“Since when?” repeated Glasgow. “Oh, since I took to church-going, I suppose. Perhaps Miss Morris could tell you!”
Slaney had become accustomed to these morsels flung to the memory of a past, but they never failed to remind her of the moment when she had placed herself for ever at a disadvantage.
“I’m not a very good authority,” she said, with a smile as cold as the January wind; “Uncle Charles has a better memory for things connected with church-going.”
The intention to be unresponsive often makes itself felt more disagreeably than a repartee. It annoyed Glasgow, even while he set it down as an indirect tribute to his desertion.
“I refuse to be described as a thing connected with church-going,” he said, looking straight at her and laughing; “I thought I had other associations.”
Major Bunbury looked up quickly, not at Glasgow, but at Slaney. Her flushed silence was obvious enough for any one, except Lady Susan, who merely supposed that champagne at luncheon was having its almost inevitable result on the complexion. Perhaps it was by contrast that Glasgow’s habitual pallor seemed pastiness, and his easy manner something that struck Major Bunbury as being like bad form.