"To be told that you're going to marry some one else?"
"You may not be told that. I don't know."
Eric was filled with a blaze of anger; he had to pause long before he could be sure of his voice.
"You still don't want to let me go? The pathetic invocation of my mother——"
Barbara tried to speak and then turned away with a helpless shrug. Eric woke from a trance to a thunder of opposing voices. Lady Poynter was retailing the secret history of the latest political crisis and the fall of the Coalition Government. His wheezing, well-fed host was attacking the Board of Trade with ill-disguised venom. "They've cut down imports to such an extent," he was saying, "that in six months' time you won't be able to get a cigar fit to smoke. I went to my man this morning—he's a fellow I've dealt with all my life, and my father before me—he promised me half a cabinet—and then made a favour of it!" Another voice enquired in a drawl: "What is it exactly that you're lecturing on, Mr. Lane?"
Barbara's head was still turned from him, and he resigned himself to the reshuffle, noticing with surprise that a finger-bowl had been placed in front of him. He could not remember having eaten anything since the fish. And he had been drinking the rather sickly Gabarnac without tasting it.
"You asked my opinion of this wine, sir," he said to Lord Poynter, belatedly attentive; in a moment he was swallowed up in a discussion which dragged its way through dessert until Lady Poynter pushed back her chair and rustled majestically to the door.
She was hardly outside the room before his host sidled conspiratorially into the empty chair next him.
"Do you know anything of still champagne?" he enquired darkly, as though he were giving a pass-word.
"I've drunk it, of course," answered Eric.