"I'm coming, dear! When on earth did you come in?" His salute was cordial. Hers was ... well!—she might have done better. But then, you see, she knew nothing about all this excitement that was afoot. And never forget that Mrs. Steptoe's legend of Ramsgate always hung in her mind.
"I've been in this past half-hour. Why did you go out again? It makes things so late."
"I'll tell you directly. How on earth did you get here?"
"How on earth did I get here?" It is slowly dawning on her that something has happened. "I drove from the Station. Just as usual!... I suppose that's the children."
"But how came we not to meet you?"
"Who?"
"John Eldridge and I—driving down to Wimbledon."
"How can I tell? I've not been at Wimbledon. I came from East Putney, as I told you, in a cab. You'd better get ready for dinner."
"All right! But how came you to come by East Putney?"
Marianne always had an irritating way of treating her husband as though he were inaudible and invisible. No doubt she meant no harm by it. But husbands do feel secretly nettled sometimes if they are, as it were, held in abeyance by a waved hand, to await the end of a colloquy they are excluded from. Challis felt, at least, that he was very good-humoured not to be nettled.