These brutalities were effective, and banished the subject, and, without pausing to comment or let others comment, Lady Oxted sent for her husband, and they sat down to a table of bridge.
"The only thing I insist on," he said, "is that my wife shall be my partner. Her curious processes of thought, when she is engaged in this kind of brain work, are a shade less disconcerting and obscure to me than they would be to others. _Aimer c'est tout comprendre._ And if I do not quite understand them all," he added, as he cut for deal, "I understand more than anybody else.--Eh, dear Violet?"
Lady Oxted's brow was always clouded when she played bridge, and to-night the blackness of the thunderstorm that sat there was not appreciably denser than usual. She played with a curious and unfortunate mixture of timorousness when the declaration was with her, and a lively confidence in the unparalleled strength of her partner's hand when the declaration was passed to her. Thus at the end of two hours, as these methods to-night were more marked than usual, the house of Oxted was sensibly impoverished. But with the rising from the card table her disquieted looks showed no betterment, and her husband offered consolation.
"We can easily sell the Grosvenor Square house," he said, "if it is that which is bothering you, Violet; and if that is not enough we can give up coffee after dinner, and have no parties. The world is too much with us."
"And with the proceeds we can buy a handbook on bridge," said she with spirit. "I will give it you for a present at Christmas, Bob. Let us go to bed."
Lady Oxted employed, in the almost daily conduct of her life, methods which she characterized as diplomatic. A less indulgent critic than herself might have labelled them with a shorter and directer word, yet not have felt that he was harsh, for the diplomatic methods did not exclude what we may elegantly term evasions of the truth. To-night, for instance, she talked with Evie for a few minutes only in her bedroom, and exacted a promise that she would go to bed at once, for she looked very tired. For herself she would have it known that her head was splitting, that if she got influenza again she would turn atheist. With these immoderate statements she secured herself from interruption, and went, not to bed, but to the smoking room, where she found Harry alone. The rustling of her dress made him look up quickly, and the most undiplomatic disappointment was evident on his face.