She smiled. "Not yet?"
"Nor likely to be," I risked.
She shook her head, so that her grey curls trembled about her cheeks.
"Ah, you bachelors, Sir George! All sorts of things happen under your noses that you don't see!"
"I don't think anything's happening here. They've simply been friends since they were boy and girl together."
"That's a handicap, I admit," she replied. "Perhaps the worst a woman has to put up with. But occasionally things happen in spite of it."
"I really think you're mistaken this time, Mrs Truscott."
"Well, well, well, well.... And are you writing us another of your charming books?"
It passed at that, but it left me with an uneasy feeling. These old ladies are so very acute.
Nothing remarkable happened at dinner, except a curious little covert duel between Julia and myself when I once more tried to draw out Derry to talk about his book. I am afraid that she won and I failed. Good-temperedly but flatly he refused to discuss it; he wanted to look at my Hogarths instead. So I drew the large folio-stand up in front of the drawing-room fire, arranged the lights and we turned over the prints. He seemed very much less drowsy; indeed it was half-past nine before he spoke of going to bed; and as in the country that is not an unreasonably early hour, and since moreover Julia had sat up late the night before, I was not surprised when she also said that she would retire early. He went first, but she was not long after him. I was therefore left either to sit over my fire alone, or to follow them, which ever I liked best.