“My husband says,” remarked Helen, with lamentable indiscretion, “that there isn’t any art in Calcutta.”
“Does he? Oh, I think that’s a mistake. There’s Mrs. Cubblewell, and Colonel Lamb, and Mrs. Tommy Jackson. Mrs. Tommy paints roses beautifully, and I do a little on satin myself!” Then, as if it were a natural outgrowth on the subject, “What is your husband here, Mrs. Browne?”
“He’s in Macintyre and Macintyre’s.”
“Oh, yes!”
Whereafter there fell a silence, during which the little lady in black seemed to be debating young Browne’s probable connection with the firm of Macintyre and Macintyre—it sometimes made such a difference—but before she had properly made up her mind the gentlemen appeared, and there ensued that uncertain form of conversation which betrays the prevalent desire that somebody should “make a move.”
Somebody made one finally, before Mr. Sayter actually yawned. The Brownes drove home rather silently in their ticca-gharry.
“Well?” said young Browne interrogatively, chucking his wife tenderly under the chin in a moonlit space of Chowringhee.
“I was thinking, George,” said she, “that I didn’t see any photographs of their wives about the room.”
“No,” said young Browne.