CHAPTER 11, part 14

"No, really? I thought you were just chaffing him at dinner. Georgie marrying, is he? His wife'll take some of his needlework off his hands. May I--ah--may I enquire the lady's name?" Olga decided to play a great card. She had just found it, so to speak, in her hand, and it was most tempting. She stopped.

"But can't you guess?" she said. "Surely I'm not absolutely on the wrong track?" "Ah, Miss Antrobus," said he. "The one I think they call Piggy. No, I should say there was nothing in that." "Oh, that had never occurred to me," said she. "I daresay I'm quite wrong. I only judged from what I thought I noticed in poor Georgie. I daresay it's only what he should have done ten years ago, but I fancy there's a spark alive still. Let us talk about something else, though we won't go in quite yet, shall we?" She felt quite safe in her apparent reluctance to tell him; the Riseholme gluttony for news made it imperative for him to ask more.

"Really, I must be very dull," he said. "I daresay an eye new to the place sees more. Who is it, Miss Bracely?" She laughed.

"Ah, how bad a man is at observing a man!" she said. "Didn't you see Georgie at dinner? He hardly took his eyes off her." She had a great and glorious reward. Colonel Boucher's face grew absolutely blank in the moonlight with sheer astonishment. "Well, you surprise me," he said. "Surely a fine woman, though lame, wouldn't look at a needle-woman--well, leave it at that." He stamped his feet and put his hands in his pockets.

"It's growing a bit chilly," he said. "You'll be catching cold, Miss Bracely, and what will your husband say if he finds out I've been strolling about with you out of doors after dinner?" "Yes, we'll go in," she said. "It is chilly. How thoughtful you are for me."