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"Will you have the lamp lit in the drawing-room or the study?" He looked at her. There was no lamp for him in her eyes. "Whichever you like. I think I shall go over to the Hannays', after all." He went; and by the lamp in the drawing-room Anne sat and brooded in her turn. She said to herself: "It's no use my trying to keep him from them. It only irritates him.
Anne owned that Edith was a saint, and that the provocation was extreme. In the afternoon, Edith, at her own request, was forgiven, and Anne, by way of proving and demonstrating her forgiveness, announced her amiable intention of calling on Mrs. Hannay on her "day." The day fell within a week of the dinner. It was agreed that Majendie was to meet his wife at the Hannays, and to take her home.
His friends, Gorst and the Hannays, noticed the change and spent themselves in persistent efforts to cheer him. And, at times when his need of distraction became imperious, he declined from Anne's lofty domesticities upon the Hannays. He liked to go over in the evening, and sit with Mrs. Hannay, and talk about his child. Mrs. Hannay was never tired of listening.
Anne had a vision of the Hannays and the Ransomes, and of the prodigal cast out from the house that loved him. And she said to herself for the first time: "Have I done right? Have I done what Christ would have me do?" The light that went up in her was a light by which her deeds looked doubtful. If she had failed in this, in charity?
"I cannot understand your liking to go there so much, when you might go to the Eliotts or the Gardners. They're always asking you, and you haven't been near them for a year." "Well, you see, the Hannays let me do what I like. They don't bother me." "Do the Eliotts bother you?" "They bore me. Horribly." "And the Gardners?" "Sometimes a little." "And Canon Wharton? No. I needn't ask." He laughed.
And she laid her hand on his arm. He took her hand in his, and pressed it, and let it drop. Then Ransome said, "Why can't you let the poor chap alone? Let him stay if he likes." That was what he wanted. Ransome knew what he wanted to be let alone. He didn't see the Hannays go. The only thing he saw distinctly was the Canon's large grey face, and the eyes in it fixed unpleasantly on him.
Anne and her husband walked home in silence across the Park, grateful for its darkness. Majendie could well imagine that she would not want to talk. He made allowance for her repulsion; he respected it and her silence as its sign. She had every right to her resentment. He had let her in for the Hannays, who had let her in for the inconceivable encounter.
And then she wished that he would not go to the Hannays, and eat things that disagreed with him. Little Peggy helped to make his misery more unendurable. She was always running to and fro between her father and her mother, with questions concerning kisses and other endearments, till he, too, wondered what she would make of it when she began to see. Everything conspired against him.
You can come to me any time you want to escape." "To escape?" Anne's face flew a colour that was a flag of defiance to any reflection on her husband. She would be loyal to him as long as she lived. Not one of her friends should know of her trouble and her fear. "From your Gorsts and Hannays and people." "Oh, from them." Anne felt that she was shielding him. Mrs.
Hannay's end of the table. But Anne, who watched her husband intently, looked in vain for that brilliance which had distinguished him the other night, when he dined in Thurston Square. These Hannays, she said to herself, made him dull. Now, though Anne didn't in the least want to talk to Mr. Hannay, Mr. Hannay displeased her by not wanting to talk more to her.
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