As the home-bound taxi drove off:
“Thank goodness that’s over,” said Triona.
She echoed with a sigh: “Yes, thank goodness.”
“All the bores of the earth.”
“Did you have a talk with Colonel Onslow?” she asked.
“The biggest of the lot. I’m sick to death of the Caucasus,” he added with unusual irritation. “I wish I had never been near it. I hate these specially selected dinner parties of people you don’t want to meet and will never meet again.” He took her hand, which was limp and unresponsive. “Did you have a rotten time, too?”
“I wish we hadn’t gone,” she replied, withdrawing her hand under the pretext of pulling her cloak closer round her shoulders.
He rolled and lit a cigarette and smoked gloomily. At last he said with some impatience:
“Of course, I didn’t mention the little episode with the British Force. It would have been out of the picture. Besides, nothing very much happened. It was a stupid thing to do—I had no right. That’s why I took an assumed name—John Briggs.”