She leaned her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Thirty-eight next birthday—as you insist."
She did not seem surprised.
"I wonder what I shall be like when I'm thirty-eight?" she hazarded.
Feathers did not answer; he was doing a rapid calculation in his mind; he knew that she, nineteen now, was nineteen years his junior. That meant that when she was thirty-six he would be fifty- five!
His mouth twisted into a grim smile. Life was a queer thing. He wondered what he would have said had anyone told him three months ago that he would be lunching here with Christopher's wife—quite contentedly.
150 There were voices in the cobble-stoned yard outside, and Marie looked towards the window.
"Two people coming in," she said. "I suppose that's who the other places are laid for." She indicated the further end of the table.
"The two people Mrs. Costin mentioned, I suppose," Feathers said. "Won't you have some more cream? I always think . . ." he broke off as the door opened and Mrs. Heriot walked into the room.