He was smiling his peculiar, voluptuous smile. "Serves you right? For spoiling everybody in the village? It does indeed."
"You don't in the least see what I mean," said Fanny.
But, after all, she was glad he hadn't seen it.
He hadn't seen anything. He hadn't seen that she had been crying. It had never dawned on him that she might care about Susan-Nanna, or that the Ballingers might love their home, their garden and their lavender bushes. He was like that. He didn't see things, and he didn't care.
He was back in his triumph of the evening, going over the compliments and congratulations, again and again—"Best speech ever made in the Town Hall—" But there was something—something he had left out.
"Did it never dawn on you—" said Fanny.
Ah, now he had it.
"There!" he said. "I knew I'd forgotten something. I never put in that bit about the darkest hour before dawn."
Fanny's mind had wandered from what she had been going to say. "Did you see what Horry did?" she said instead.
"Everybody could see it. It was most unnecessary."