Mrs. Carden thought George should ask her to take the head of the table; she considered Launa too young. She was disappointed when she found the table was round.
Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Herbert were the other guests. Mr. Herbert was an ugly, short man, with a square face, and a stubbly black moustache. He was a journalist—besides which he was clever. Shortly he was going to Canada to write articles for some papers on the country and its resources.
“You are going to write to me, too,” said Mrs. Phillips.
“Yes,” he replied, with a glance, full of—what?
Launa saw it; here was a man and a woman who clearly were of moment to each other. Launa was so absolutely ignorant of men; she knew only one man, and she tried to forget him. She had believed in them all as a class, and in their chivalrous respect for women—indefinite women—and in their everlasting love for one particular woman at last, but her belief was tottering.
That all men were brave she believed, too, it was part, an essential part, of her idea of a man, as all women are lovely and good. Of course she knew women existed with protruding teeth, who have no attraction, but men do not love them. Mrs. Carden she classed among them.
Captain Carden talked to her with assiduity. He told her he found London dull.
“I hate the people; they are so difficult to know. I have called over and over again on the Huntingdons. You know who he is? Lord Huntingdon in the War Office. And I go often to the club for billiards, but no one is friendly, and society is very difficult to get into.”
“But do you not go in for something? Don’t you ride, or row, or play golf? I think all men should care for things of that sort, even for making love.”
“I never make love; that means marriage, and I have no money.”