"
"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.
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