She nodded, managing to convey entire
understanding and acceptance of what it forecast. Once, at the table,
he called her Meta.
She deliberated a reply--he had asked her opinion about British bottled
sauces--but when she answered she called him Mr. Turnbull. This, too,
pleased him. She had an unerring judgment in the small affairs of
deference. Dinner had been better than usual, and he realized he had
eaten too much. His throat felt constricted, he had difficulty in
swallowing a final gulp of coffee; the heavy odors of the dining room
almost sickened him.
"We'll get out on the beach," he said abruptly; "a little air."
They proceeded past the unremitting sprinklers on the strip of lawn to
the wide gray sweep of sand. At that hour no one else was visible, and
a new recklessness invaded his discomfort. "You see," he told her,
"that bad luck of yours isn't going to hold."
"It seems incredible," she murmured. She added without an appearance of
the least ulterior thought: "Mrs. August Turnbull."
"Exactly," he asserted.
A triumphant conviction of pleasure to come surged through him like a
subtle exhilarating cordial.
"I'll take no nonsensical airs from Louise or the Rathes," he
proclaimed.
"Don't let that worry you," she answered serenely.
He saw that it need not, and looked forward appreciatively to a scene
in which Meta would not come off second.
Above them the long curve of the boardwalk was empty, with, behind it,
the suave ornamental roofs of the cottages.
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