Denham began to give her directions, and Katharine and William moved on together.
“I hope you’ve had a pleasant afternoon,” William remarked.
“I like Ralph Denham,” she replied.
“Ça se voit,” William returned, with superficial urbanity.
Many retorts were obvious, but wishing, on the whole, for peace, Katharine merely inquired:
“Are you coming back to tea?”
“Cassandra and I thought of having tea at a little shop in Portland Place,” he replied. “I don’t know whether you and Denham would care to join us.”
“I’ll ask him,” she replied, turning her head to look for him. But he and Cassandra were absorbed in the aye-aye once more.
William and Katharine watched them for a moment, and each looked curiously at the object of the other’s preference. But resting his eye upon Cassandra, to whose elegance the dressmakers had now done justice, William said sharply:
“If you come, I hope you won’t do your best to make me ridiculous.”
“If that’s what you’re afraid of I certainly shan’t come,” Katharine replied.
They were professedly looking into the enormous central cage of monkeys, and being thoroughly annoyed by William, she compared him to a wretched misanthropical ape, huddled in a scrap of old shawl at the end of a pole, darting peevish glances of suspicion and distrust at his companions. Her tolerance was deserting her. The events of the past week had worn it thin. She was in one of those moods, perhaps not uncommon with either sex, when the other becomes very clearly distinguished, and of contemptible baseness, so that the necessity of association is degrading, and the tie, which at such moments is always
