Тринадцать гостей / Thirteen Guests

Maybe she had hoped Zena would stay, but this interview had ended rather abruptly when the actress had suddenly noticed Lord Aveling in the doorway, and had whispered confidentially, “I’m so sorry, I’ve got to go and talk shop, but perhaps I’ll see you again later.” Anne, too, had paid him a second visit.

But Nadine Leveridge had kept away, and during the intervals of the procession John had visualised her in the ballroom, from which music faintly floated. He visualised her with painful clearness and struggled not to.

If she had been dancing, there was little sign of it.

She looked as neat as when he had last seen her, and the double row of pearls lay against smooth, cool skin.

“Shall I go?” she asked with disarming bluntness.

“Go? Good Lord, no!” he exclaimed. “Why on earth?”

“You look worried.” His mind raced for the right answer, but her mind raced his. “I expect your foot’s still giving you the devil.

“Just a bit.”

“So I will go. You’d rather be alone. I know you’ve had a string of visitors. Good-night.”

“I say—you’re not—wait a minute—you’re not really going, are you?”

“You’re quite sure you don’t want me to?”

“I should hate you to!”

“Well, after all, I didn’t really come here just to turn round and go back again,” she smiled.

She entered the room and walked towards the window.

“Haig’s a bit restless to-night,” she remarked. “Haig is our watch-dog, and Lord Aveling’s method of keeping the Great War green. Though why anybody wants to keep a war green I’ve never learned.” She pulled the long curtains across the window, shutting out the lawn and muffling Haig’s war-cry. Then she rolled a large green silk pouffe towards the couch and sat beside him. “What do we talk about, Mr. Foss? Things that matter, or things that don’t?”

“I’ll leave the choice to you,” he hedged.

“Safest?”

He turned red. What a fool he was! What a blundering ass! Usually he was rather good at conversation, but now he could not even talk of cabbages and kings without putting his foot in it. He did not realise that there are some women with whom it is almost impossible for a man to talk insignificantly.