Page:My mortal enemy - 1926.djvu/47

 gold buttons out of his cuffs and putting in the new ones. “I can’t get over your canniness, Liddy,” she said as she fitted them.

“It’s not like me, is it, Myra?” retorted my aunt; “not like me at all to choose the right sort of thing. But did it never occur to you that anyone besides yourself might know what is appropriate for Oswald? No, I’m sure it never did!”

Mrs. Myra took the laugh so heartily to herself that I felt it was a shame to deceive her. So, I am sure, did Oswald. During dinner he talked more than usual, but he was ill at ease. Afterwards, at the opera, when the lights were down, I noticed that he was not listening to the music, but was looking listlessly off into the gloom of the house, with something almost sorrowful in his strange, half-moon eyes. During an entr’acte a door at the back was opened, and a draught blew in. As he put his arm back to pull up the cloak which had slipped down from his wife’s bare