She was gazing at him with a look that he had come to know, having known Fanny for fifteen years. A tender, rather dreamy look it was, but distinctly speculative. It was directed to the silver streaks in Straker's hair on a line with his eyeglasses, and he knew that Fanny was making a calculation and saying to herself that it must be quite fifteen years or more.
Straker was getting on.
A week at Amberley would do him all the good in the world. She rather hoped—though she couldn't altogether promise him—that a certain lady in whom he was interested (he needn't try to look as if he wasn't) would be there.
"Not Philippa?" he asked wearily.
"No, Jimmy, not Philippa. You know whom I mean."
He did. He went down to Amberley in July, arriving early in a golden and benignant afternoon. It was precisely two years since he had been there with Philippa. It was very quiet this year, so quiet that he had an hour alone with Fanny on the terrace before tea. Brocklebank had taken the others off somewhere in his motor.
She broke it to him that the lady in whom he was interested wasn't there. Straker smiled. He knew she wouldn't be. The others, Fanny explained, were Laurence Furnival and his Idea.
"His Idea?"
"His Idea, Jimmy, of everything that's lovable."
There was a luminous pause in which Fanny let it sink into him.