“I saw him at Maidenhead with her last Sunday. Happy thought! He shall come and talk to her... I want one or two bright souls who’ll talk to me and perhaps take a hand in a little game of poker. You, me, Babs Oakleigh, Sonia O’Rane, my young brother,—Amy Loring doesn’t play—the Pinto de Vasconcellos....”
“Oh, Bobbie, can we bear them for the whole of a long week-end?,” asked Deganway with misgiving. “Madame is mortally offended with any man who doesn’t make love to her, and the husband with any man who does. I should hate to be knifed or garotted or whatever they do in Brazil or wherever they come from.”
“I don’t know them. Margaret Poynter wished them on to my mother.”
“I don’t know them either. I dine with them, and that’s surely enough... Well, I’ll see you through with them, if you’ll do the same for me another time.”
Pentyre reached for his crutches and returned to his taxi. After drawing blank at the Eclectic Club, he found John Carstairs at Hale’s and Eric at the Thespian. The draft list was again submitted for approval, with Ivy’s name prominently exposed as a bait; and, with an effort of concentration, Eric addressed himself to the invitation. For ten days he had been too much preoccupied to think of a world outside Eaton Place and Ryder Street; week-end parties were no doubt being made up; strange, half-forgotten voices summoned him to dine and go to the opera, but he lived and worked in a dream bounded by unconsciousness from the moment when Ivy left him at night till the moment when she reappeared next day.
“Most of the party will be coming on Friday afternoon,” Pentyre explained.
“Where to?,” asked Eric.
“Croxton, of course, you idiot! Do pay a little attention! You needn’t pretend you’ve never been there. Well, what about it?”
Eric stretched out his hand for the list and, on reading it again, discovered that he had read it the first time without taking in any of the names.
“I should love to come,” he answered absently.