“And couldn’t find out!” retorted Charlotte. “Dolf could have given you the address, I suppose, the other day, had you asked. He’s too great a fool to think to give it of his own accord.”
George looked at “Dolf,” whom his wife seemed so completely to ignore; looked at him with a pleasant smile, as if he would atone for Charlotte’s rudeness. “We were not together a minute, were we, Mr. Pain? I was in a hurry, and you seemed in one also.”
“Don’t say any more about it, Mr. Godolphin,” spoke Dolf, as resentfully as he dared. “That’s just like her! Making a fuss over nothing! Of course you could not be expected to visit at such a time: and any one but Charlotte would have the good feeling to see it. I am pleased to be able to see you here, and wish you a pleasant voyage; but I remonstrated with her this morning, that it was scarcely the right thing to intrude upon you. But she never listens, you know.”
“You needn’t have come,” snapped Charlotte.
“And then you would have gone on at me about my bad manners, as you have to Mr. Godolphin! One never knows how to please you, Charlotte.”
George resumed: to break the silence possibly, more than from any other motive. “Have you settled at Shooter’s Hill?”
“Settled!” shrieked Charlotte; “settled at Shooter’s Hill! Where it’s ten miles, good, from a theatre or any other place of amusement! No, thank you. A friend of Verrall’s had this place to let for a few weeks, and Dolf was idiot enough to take it——”
“You consented first, Charlotte,” interrupted poor Dolf.
“Which I never should have done had I reflected on the bother of getting up to town,” said Charlotte equably. “Settled at Shooter’s Hill! I’d as soon do as you are going to do, Mr. George—bury myself alive in Calcutta. We have taken on lease a charming house in Belgravia, and shall enter on a succession of dinner-parties: one a week we think of giving during the season. We shall not get into it much before February: it takes some time to choose furniture.”
“I hate dinner-parties,” said Dolf ruefully.