Sales
so happy. He murmured something in response and, as he looked up and
met the gaze of Rose, she smiled at him and saw his eyes darken with
feeling, or with thought.
After dinner he sought her out. She had known that would happen:
she had been avoiding it for weeks, but it was useless to play at
hide-and-seek with the inevitable, and she calmly watched him
approach.
'Why did you laugh?' he asked at once, in his old, angry fashion. 'You
were laughing at me.'
'No, I smiled.'
'Ah, you're not so free with your smiles that they have no meaning.'
'Perhaps not, but I don't know what the meaning was.'
'I believe you've been laughing at me ever since I came back.'
'Indeed, I haven't. Why should I?'
'God knows,' he answered with a shrug; 'I never do understand what
people laugh at.'
'You're too self-conscious, Francis.'
'Only with you,' he said.
'Somebody is going to sing,' she warned him as a gaunt girl went
towards the piano; and sinking on to a convenient and sheltered couch,
they resigned themselves to listen--or to endure. From that corner
Rose had a view of the long room, mediocre in its decoration, mediocre
in its occupants. She could see her host standing before the fire,
swinging his eyeglasses on a cord and gazing at the cornice as the
song proceeded. She could see Christabel's neck and shoulders and the
back of her fair head. Beside her a plump matron had her face suitably
composed; three bored young men were leaning against a wall.
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