She saw the American greet her as if he had met her before. Lady Clifton-Wyatt was positively polite to him. He must be a very great man.
She heard Lady Clifton-Wyatt say something about, “How is the new ship coming on?” and the American said, “She’s doing as well as could be expected.”
So he was a ship-builder. Marie Louise thought that his must be a heartbreaking business in these days when ships were being slaughtered in such numbers. She asked Polly and her husband if they knew him or his name.
Widdicombe shook his head. Polly laughed at her husband. “How do you know? He might be your own mother, for all you can tell. Put on your distance-glasses, you poor fish.” She turned to Marie Louise. “You know how near-sighted Tom is.”
“An excellent fault in a man,” said Marie Louise.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Polly. “You can’t trust even the blind ones. And you’ll notice that when Tom comes to one of these décolleté dinners, he wears his reading-glasses.”
All this time Widdicombe was taking out his distance-glasses, taking off his reading-glasses and pouching them and putting them away, and putting on his distance-glasses, and 17 from force of habit putting their pouch away. Then he stared at Davidge, took off his distance-glasses, found the case with difficulty, put them up, pocketed them, and stood blearing into space while he searched for his reading-glasses, found them, put the case back in his pocket and saddled his nose with the lenses.
Polly waited in a mockery of patience and said:
“Well, after all that, what?”
“I don’t know him,” said Widdicombe.