‘I wish you could have been there,’ he said rather lamely. ‘It was awfully nice.’
Grandmother laughed; she said:
‘You had better bring the young woman to see me, Hugo, I liked her much better than the other one—Miss . . . Connell, wasn’t it, with the fair hair, but—take your time.’
Hugo murmured something inarticulate; he was peeling a pear and I could not see his face, but I knew he was saying it wasn’t like that at all.
Coffee came in, and after the coffee grandmother went upstairs. She had not looked at me at all, and I was glad.
We went into the drawing-room, Hugo and I, and sat down by the fire. At least I sat down and Hugo stood up with his back to the fire. He took a cigarette from the jade box on the chimney-piece, and then he began to talk. The room was rather dark, for Grandmother would not have electric light, and there was only one lamp on the table behind.
He said:
‘Aunt Gerry is a dear, I am awfully fond of her. But she does get the wrong end of the stick sometimes. I suppose in her generation it would have been like that.’
I said:
‘Yes, I suppose so.’