Chapter SevenAfter dinner when they were all in the drawing-room, Ernest Wadlow piloted his sister-in-law to a sofa at some little distance from the group round the fire. The last thing on earth that Rachel desired was a tête-à-tête with Ernest, but in the twenty-five years of his marriage to Mabel she had learned the impossibility of deterring him from anything upon which he had set his mind. In his nervous, fidgety way he was quite indeflectable. She therefore resigned herself, and hoped that he would say what he wanted to say and get it over. This, however, was hoping against hope. Ernest sat down, straightened his pince-nez, coughed, remarked upon how cold it was, and then enquired whether she had been shopping.
Rachel leaned back, said ‘No,’ and awaited developments.
‘A very cold da
