I hooked my golf umbrella out of the forged-iron stand in the hallway, and took it out to the front gate, so that Mrs Bedford wouldn’t get showered on. She was wearing a dark mink jacket and her hair must have been waved that afternoon, for it swept up from her forehead in a blue-gray wing, and her little black hat was perched on top of it precariously. She presented her right cheek to be kissed, and when I duly did so, I smelled a heavy Italian perfume that probably could have been used to fuel municipal buses. Constance Bedford was a handsome woman, there was no question about that. But she could also be suspicious and snobbish and tiresome, and all those characteristics showed in the slittiness of her eyes, and the dragged-down wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. I looked over her shoulder at Walter Bedford, and I could tell by the tight, tense look on his face that he had warned Constance to be on her best behaviour. He wanted desperately to see Jane, and he knew that the price of that was for Constance at least to be cordial.
