— V —“WHAT ON EARTH AM I TO DO?”
The host and hostess were first down in the drawing-room. Then came Mrs. Owen and her daughter. Sir Philip Ford came last. At the moment of his entry Mrs. Thurston was talking gaily to Doris Owen. She had some flowers in her hand, with which she insisted on ornamenting the girl’s simple frock. As they stood face to face, close together, they made a couple worth looking at. So Mr. Thurston seemed to think. He so obviously had eyes only for his wife that was, and for his wife that was to have been, that Mrs. Owen relinquished her attempt to engage him in conversation. Instead she regarded him with something in her gaze which, had he observed it, he would hardly have felt was flattering.
It was a peculiarity of Philip Ford’s that everything he did he did noi
