She remembers to inquire after sick relatives and she can always make some happily turned little reference to “the last time that I met you, on that very hot day at the station”--which makes one feel that the meeting in question left an indelible impression on her mind and was of real importance to her. It is all very pleasant and gratifying. On the night of the party she told me that she thought it was all going most successfully and that the theatricals had been delightful. “Such a charming way of meeting one’s neighbors all together,” she said, looking around the room through her tortoise-shell lorgnette. She was wearing a blue gown that was all over sequins and shimmered as she moved, and although Lady Annabel is a small woman, and very thin and spare, she looked majestic and altogether reminded me of Queen Elizabeth. “I think I see a face that is strange to me,” she murmured, drawing her brows together in a rather puzzled way, and one knew that this was one of Lady Annabel’s very harmless little affectations, since there are of necessity a good many faces that are strange to her, even in Cross Loman. I followed the direction of the lorgnette and saw, as I had somehow expected, that she was looking at Harter. “That is Mr. Harter.” “Oh,” said Lady Annabel. She looked hard at him and then she said, “Oh,” again--but that was all. Leeds was less forbearing. “Sour-faced devil, isn’t he? Not that it’s much wonder. If he’d had any sense, he’d have stayed where he was. What the eyes don’t see the heart won’t grieve for.” “I should have thought he’d got used to it by this time,” said Mrs. Leeds simply. “Do you remember Captain Tompkins and that unfortunate engineer--what was his name--who threw up his job and went home?” Evidently the Leeds couple, who had, after all, seen something of Mrs. Harter in Egypt, looked upon Bill Patch as being one of a series. I reflected that perhaps they knew more about it than we did. Provincials take these things so seriously. “I’m going to take that wretched chap to have a drink,” Leeds declared. “Utter little outsider though he is, I’m sorry for him.” Mrs. Leeds, laughing loudly, called out, “Fellow-feeling, I suppose?” after him as he went off. I thought it to Lady Annabel’s credit that not a muscle of her face had moved during the whole of this rather crude conversation. It was one of the few hot nights of the year, and sooner or later everybody drifted into the garden. I went there with Mary Ambrey, and we found our way to the furthest summerhouse, one that has fallen into disuse. The summerhouse proper, a strangely obvious little trysting place, was being monopolized by Christopher and Mrs. Fazackerly. I suppose that every single couple who went into the garden that night must have passed the summerhouse, glanced inside it, smiled sympathetically and gone on.