Rowley put his arm round her, for though she was laughing, her voice sounded like crying all the time.
Under other circumstances he might have been more struck with the little embarrassment which she could not perfectly control, but at the moment he was not quite himself either. That impudent Doady Donne had played a shameful hoax on him, had actually had the audacity to declare that she had seen his wife—Nina, Mrs. Dacres—in Teddy Vere's hansom! He hadn't taken what she said very pleasantly, for the bare notion made him furious, and—though telling himself all the while that he didn't believe it—until he had found Nina seated with her friend, it was impossible to feel any security.
"'Pon my life, it's too bad!" he was saying mentally. "I don't know what things are coming to; there ought to be a stop put to it, a line must be drawn somewhere; and such women oughtn't to be permitted to speak of a lady in that chaify way."
While these reflections occupied his mind he was giving scraps of news to Nina, and answering Mrs. Chetwode, who was frankly saying that she hadn't a morsel of dinner to give him.
"But I don't want any, I've only just had a most enormous luncheon."
"Luncheon! Where?"
"Why, my dear, at the station—ham, beef, beer—you know—veal pie—that sort o' thing."
"Rowley! how could you! You'll be awfully ill, you know."
"Not a bit of it, not I. I—" but at this moment rat-tat-a-tat-tat went the knocker.
Oh! agony—there wasn't a doubt this was Teddy!