"Oh, yes," I replied, "you can count on me for the claque."
The room had sunk into a stillness. Constraint was in the air. "Then that's settled. On New Year's Eve we—we all meet again. Unless, Miss Bowater, there is any hope of seeing you meanwhile—just to arrange the titles and so on of your songs on the programme."
"No," smiled Fanny, "I see no hope whatever. You forget, Mr Crimble, there are dishes to wash. And hadn't you better see Miss Finch first?"
Mr Crimble cast a strange look at her face. He was close to her, and it was almost as if he had whispered, "Fanny." But there was no time for further discussion. Dr Phelps, gloved and buttoned, was already at the door.
Fanny returned into the room when our guests had taken their departure. I heard their male voices in vivacious talk as they marched off in the cold dark air beneath my window.
"I thought they were never going," said Fanny lightly, twisting up into her hair an escaped ringlet. "I think, do you know, we had better say nothing to mother about the tea—at least not yet a while. They are dull creatures: it's pottering about so dull and sleepy a place, I suppose. What could have inspired you to invite Dr Phelps to tea? Really, really, Miss M., you are rather astonishing. Aren't you, now?"
What right had she to speak to me like this, as if we had met again after another life? She paused in her swift collection of the remnants of our feast. "Sulking?" she inquired sweetly.
With an effort I kept my self-possession. "You meant what you said, then? You really think I would sink to that?"
"'Sink!' To what? Oh, the dancing, you mean. How funny you should still be fretting about that. Still, you look quite entertaining when you are cross: 'Diaphenia like the daffadowndilly,' you know. Good Heavens! Surely we shouldn't hide any kind of lights under bushels, should we? I'm sure the Reverend Harold would agree to that. Isn't it being the least bit pedantic?"
"I should think," I retorted, "Mr Crimble would say anything pleasant to any young woman."