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310 “So you did!” she said. “I’m getting jealous. Interesting, dear?”

“Yes, dear, haw, haw,” said Robert, and again their eyes met.

This time Georgie had no doubts at all. They were playing the same game now: they smiled and smirked at each other. They had not been playing the same game before. Now they recognised that there was a conspiracy between them.... But he was host, his business for the moment was to make his guests comfortable, and not pry into their inmost bosoms. So before Mrs Weston realised that she had the whole table attending to her, he said:

“I shall get it out of Robert after dinner. And I’ll tell you, Mrs Quantock.”

“Before Atkinson came to the Colonel,” said Mrs Weston, going on precisely where she had left off, “and that was five years before Elizabeth came to me let me see – was it five or was it four and a half? – four and a half we’ll say, he had another servant whose name was Ahab Crowe.”

“No!” said Georgie.

“Yes!” said Mrs Weston, hastily finishing her champagne, for she saw Foljambe coming near – “Yes, Ahab Crowe. He married, too, just like Atkinson is going to, and that’s an odd coincidence in itself. I tell the Colonel that if Ahab Crowe hadn’t married, he would be with him still, and who can say that he’d have fancied Elizabeth? And if he hadn’t, I don’t believe that the Colonel and I would ever have – well, I’ll leave that alone, and spare my blushes. But that’s not what I was saying. Whom do you think Ahab Crowe