“Well?” she demanded.
I stared at her. It was incredible, but there was actually jealousy in
her voice. It said, pitifully plainly—‘Again I have missed the centre of
a situation!’
“Well?” she repeated. And then—“If you saw something——” She altered the
phrase—“Tell us what you saw.”
But I had not missed the quick fear that had shown, for a moment, in
Kent’s eyes—fear of betrayal even while his tongue was betraying him.
I laughed. I thought to myself as I answered, ‘Oh, I am doing this
beautifully!’ And I was. My voice sounded perfectly natural, not a bit
high. I had plenty of words. I said, most jauntily—
“Oh, Cousin Nita, I could hardly see my own nose. The fog had been
simply pouring in. My fault—I didn’t latch the door properly, I suppose.
And then you called, and Mr. Rehan went to shut it for me, and he
slithered on the mat, and——”
“I see!”
“Of course! Parquet——” The Baxter girl took a step or two and pirouetted
back to us. “Perfect! You ought to give a dance, Miss Serle.”
Anita made no answer, but taking the can and the towel she opened the
door of dispute, and, stooping an instant on the threshold to lift some
small object from the floor, went out of the room. We heard her set down
her load on the landing, and the rattle of the sash as she threw up the
window, paused, and shut it again. She came back. A fresh inflow of
acrid vapour preceded her and set us coughing. It was the stooping, I
suppose, that had reddened her cheeks, for she was flushed when she came
back to us. It was the only time that I ever saw my cousin with a
colour. She spoke to us, a little gaspingly, as if the fog had caught
her too by the throat—
“Jenny’s quite right. One can’t see an inch in front of one. No—not a
cab in hearing. You’ll have to resign yourselves to staying on
indefinitely. What? oh, what nonsense, Kent! As if I’d let you go in
that state! Besides, there’s Jasper’s poem. Are you going away without
hearing it?” The soft monologue continued as she shepherded them to the
fire. “That’s always the way—one talks—one gets no work done. Get under
the light, Jasper! Beryl, help me to move the table. Oh yes, Jasper, I
forgot to tell you, I met Roy Huth the other day and he had just read——”