“I think I'll telephone to the Club,” said Honora, and left the room.
It was some time before her husband responded to the call; and then he explained that if Honora didn't object, he was going to a man's dinner in a private room. The statement was not unusual.
“But, Howard,” she said, “I—I wanted you particularly to-night.”
“I thought you were going to dine with Lily Dallam. She told me you were. Are you alone?”
“Mr. Brent is here. He brought over some Banbury people to play bridge. They've gone.”
“Oh, Brent will amuse you,” he replied. “I didn't know you were going to be home, and I've promised these men. I'll come back early.”
She hung up the receiver thoughtfully, paused a moment, and went back to the drawing-room. Brent looked up.
“Well,” he said, “was I right?”
“You seem always to be right,” Honora, sighed.
After dinner they sat in the screened part of the porch which Mrs. Fern had arranged very cleverly as an outside room. Brent had put a rug over Honora's knees, for the ocean breath that stirred the leaves was cold. Across the darkness fragments of dance music drifted fitfully from the Club, and died away; and at intervals, when the embers of his cigar flared up, she caught sight of her companion's face.