"Yes," she whispered, "there they are. They have made it up.... Wickes, don't you think it would be a noble deed to invite the schoolmaster to play God Save the King? It will get his name into the local paper."
"Certainly," said Wickes. He took a long breath, conceiving his troubles over, remaining, however, with his eyes fixed on Susan in a kind of awed curiosity. Finally he spoke out the problem in his mind.
"Do you mind telling me," he said, apologetically, "what spell you used--how you contrived to keep the infant quiet?"
"Yes, she's a witch," said the Duchess kindly, "but I know the secret. It had a comforter in its mouth."
They were all moving now, bustling out of their chairs, and blocking up the gangway with their "good nights." The proletariat was waiting for them to depart before shuffling out of the shilling benches. And there was Julia, paler than usual, but as lovely, smiling at Barnaby, giving him a long, strange look that was full of pity and understanding....
"You're done up," said Barnaby. "Come along. I shouldn't have let you be dragged into this performance on the top of a hard day's hunting."
She kept her lip steady, wishing she had not seen that interchange of glances; shrinking absurdly from the implication that was conveyed by Kilgour's officious interposition of his broad person. Did he think he could arrest the march of events by planting himself like a kind ox between Barnaby and Julia? Did he think they would not find means--? Still she kept her lip steady, letting Barnaby hurry her down the room; reminding herself that she had no right to feel insulted, or even a little sad.
When they reached home she was going straight upstairs, as was her custom, but Barnaby stopped her.
"Don't go up yet," he said. "You ate no dinner. I told them we'd have something when we came in."
She let him draw a chair for her beside that red fire in the hall that always tempted the weary to go no farther; and bring things that she did not want out of the dining-room.
"I've sent away the servants," he said. "I've got out of the way of them flitting round me. You'd rather sit here, wouldn't you, and get warm and let me forage?"
For a little while they were gay, and then he cleared away plates and glasses, and a silence fell between them. He settled down in another of the great chairs and lit a cigarette. A smile curved in the corners of his mouth and vanished; he was thinking hard. Susan watched him, shading her eyes with her hand that he might not raise his head suddenly and read their wistfulness. She was not often alone with him in the house.