He lifted his glass and tipped it to the girl. “Here’s to liberty,” he said.
She was gazing into her drink, watching the ice cubes writhing amid the bubbles. “You really are soft on Mummy, aren’t you?” she said. Mummy. The word stopped him for a beat. A tall man with a high, smooth forehead went past, squeezing sideways through the crush. Quirke recognized him as the one from the hotel, the Trevor that the monocled old boy had crossed the room to greet. Small world; too small. “You were sweet on her,” Phoebe said, “years ago, and still are. I know all about it.”
“I was sweet on her sister-I married her sister.”
“But only on the rebound. Daddy got the one you wanted, and then you married Aunt Delia.”
“You’re speaking of the dead.”
“I know. I’m awful, amn’t I? But it’s true, all the same. Do you miss her?”
“Who?” She struck him sharply on the wristbone with her knuckle, and the feather in her hat bobbed and the tip of it touched him on the forehead. “It’s twenty years,” he said, and then, after a pause, “Yes, I miss her.”
SARAH SAT DOWN ON THE PLUSH STOOL BEFORE THE DRESSING TABLE and inspected herself in the looking glass. She had put on a dress of scarlet silk but wondered now if it had been a mistake. They would study her, as they always did, pretending not to, searching for something to disapprove of, some sign of difference, some statement that she was not one of them. She had lived among them for-what? fifteen years?-but they had never accepted her, never would, the women especially.