“You have none yet?” said Mrs. Milton gently.
“No ... but a husband counts also, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, yes! Rob is the best husband in the world. Perhaps I love the boys so much because they are like him. He hates my having to sing again. You know how a man feels when his wife has to work, and he hoped to give me an easy time. But he’s working in the City all day, and I’d like to do something too. Oh, yes! Rob is splendid. I should think he did count.” A woman’s voice broke in shrilly: “I simply adore my dogs. Wouldn’t be parted from them. Don’t enjoy my meals unless they are with me and....”
Claudia and Mrs. Milton looked at one another, and the mother-woman smiled. “Isn’t it a pity?” she said.
“Tell me where you live,” responded Claudia. “I shall want someone to sing at a little dinner I am giving soon. I will not encourage these dull bridge evenings. Will you sing for me?... Ah! here come the men.”
Frank Hamilton came straight across to her and commenced to talk, apparently not noticing her companion, who drew a little away, as though feeling she was not wanted any longer. But Claudia interrupted Hamilton’s rather ardent words and said, “Mrs. Milton, was Mr. Hamilton introduced to you?” He was forced to turn a little, and Claudia noticed that Mrs. Milton bowed with a little embarrassment.
“I think Mr. Hamilton has forgotten me,” she replied quietly. “We were acquainted in our youth.”
“Were you?” Claudia looked at him in surprise, for she had been watching him all the evening out of the corner of her eyes, while apparently oblivious of his existence—a womanish trick—and she had not seen him speak to her. When Hamilton spoke it was rather stiffly.
“I did not see you before, Mrs. Milton.” It was a stupid fib, and Claudia noted it. “How do you do? Yes, in our salad days we used to warble duets together, didn’t we?” The geniality of the last words was rather forced. Claudia divined that he did not want those days recalled. The obvious reason momentarily occurred to her, but a glance at Mrs. Milton dissipated it. Also, she was several years older than Hamilton. Hamilton had once confessed that he could never fall in love with a plain woman, and Margaret Milton would never be beautiful except to the man who loved her.
“I had hoped I should sit next to you,” he said in an undertone. Mrs. Milton had moved away to the piano. “It was too bad, and I couldn’t even see you properly because of that beastly erection in the middle.”