“My pleasure was always to do as my husband wished.”
“What is that about me?” said Sir John, coming up to them. “How do you do, Claudia. I am sorry Gilbert is not able to come. But it shows the right spirit. I inculcated that into him when he was a boy.”
He looked at Claudia fixedly under his heavy, bushy eyebrows. They always annoyed Claudia, who longed to tell him to brush them. She knew the meaning of that look. It was to remind her that she had so far failed to provide him with a grandson.
“Then the responsibility rests with you,” said Claudia quietly.
“What do you mean? What responsibility? We are proud of him.”
“‘All work and no play——’” Claudia began to quote, when he interrupted her.
“Pooh! that was invented by some lazy rogue, I bet. Work never yet hurt any man. It’s play—late hours, too rich food and too much drink—that plays old Harry with the constitution. I impressed that on him early in life. Marian, don’t fidget with your fan”—she carried an old-fashioned fan of black ostrich feathers—“it worries me. The husband to work and the wife to look after the house and the children, that is the proper division. You leave Gilbert alone, and don’t worry him to come to silly dinner-parties. I’m getting on in years, and it doesn’t matter about me. He’s carrying the name to the country. The youngest K.C.—it’ s a thing to be proud of in a husband, Claudia.” He fixed his rather prominent cold grey eyes on her as she lightly shrugged her shoulders.
But her hostess fluttered up to her rescue. Mrs. Rivington never walked like other people, she always floated or fluttered.
“Mrs. Currey, may I present to you Mr. Littleton, who will take you in to dinner. It was too bad of your husband to desert us. But he is impervious to the charms of women, isn’t he?”
“Obviously not,” said the tall, almost gaunt, fair-haired man who bowed before her. Claudia knew by the accent that he was an American. “Your husband is the new K.C., is he not? King’s Counsel—it has a dignified but archaic sound to our ears.”