Matters between the Clement Kanes were certainly becoming uncomfortably strained. In the drawing room, before dinner, Rosemary had sat a little withdrawn from the rest of the company, preoccupied and ungracious, while Clement, trying to appear unconcerned, all the time watched her. Like two characters out of a problem play, thought Miss Allison, who preferred drama to be confined to the stage. And really it made things rather awkward and unreal when two members of a very ordinary family behaved in this neurotic manner. Even Clive Pemble, who was not sensitive to atmosphere, seemed to be aware of tension.

He had made several hearty efforts to engage Rosemary in conversation, but though her lips smiled mechanically, her replies were monosyllabic and discouraging.

Miss Allison had a fleeting suspicion that the beautiful Mrs. Clement Kane was seeing herself in a tragic role and banished it nobly. "Cat!" said Miss Allison to herself.

On the opposite side of the table Betty Pemble was chattering to Jim Kane, from time to time appealing to Clive to corroborate her statements. There was no trace of her mother's majesty in Betty. She had enjoyed a certain measure of success as a girl through a natural ingenuousness which was pretty in a debutante but slightly tedious in a woman of thirty-five. She had a vivacious way of talking, pleasing manners, and a good heart, but her habit of telling interminable and incoherent stories about her own experiences made her a wearisome person to be with for more than an hour or two together. Fortunately Clive Pemble profoundly mistrusted clever women, and if he sometimes was bored by his wife's conversation, this boredom was more than compensated for by her blind faith in his omniscience.