Explore "Paying Guests" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In spite of this manly resolution, Mrs. Bertram's gloomy forebodings were fulfilled, and the evening was ghastly in the extreme. Colonel Chase was rather late for dinner (unlike him) but his soup was being kept warm, and he marched into the dining-room with the evening paper under his arm and a fund of unnaturally cheerful observations. He could not notice Miss Howard, for that would have rendered magnanimity ridiculous, but never had he been otherwise so affable.
"Ha, Mrs. Holders," he said. "I crave your partnership at the bridge table after dinner. Mrs. Oxney and Mrs. Bertram? Yes? How you spoil me! I shall hope to wipe off the memory of the adverse fate--"