Mrs Hannay took her hand and gave it an affectionate little squeeze.
'My dear, you know I don't want to hurt your feelings.
Your husband can't help rising very high in the Service.
He'd make things so much easier for himself if he were a little more human.
Why doesn't he play football?'
'It's not his game.
He's always only too glad to play tennis.'
'He doesn't give that impression.
He gives the impression that there's no one here who's worth his while to play with.'
'Well, there isn't,' said Anne, stung.
Alban happened to be an extremely good tennis-player.
He had played a lot of tournaments in England and Anne knew that it gave him a grim satisfaction to knock those beefy, hearty men all over the court.
He could make the best of them look foolish.
He could be maddening on the tennis court and Anne was aware that sometimes he could not resist the temptation.
'He does play to the gallery, doesn't he?' said Mrs Hannay.
'I don't think so.
Believe me, Alban has no idea he isn't popular.
As far as I can see he's always pleasant and friendly with everybody.'
'It's then he's most offensive,' said Mrs Hannay dryly.
'I know people don't like us very much,' said Anne, smiling a little.
'I'm very sorry, but really I don't know what we can do about it.'
'Not you, my dear,' cried Mrs Hannay.
'Everybody adores you.
That's why they put up with your husband.
My dear, who could help liking you?'
'I don't know why they should adore me,' said Anne.
But she did not say it quite sincerely.
She was deliberately playing the part of the dear little woman and within her she bubbled with amusement.
They disliked Alban because he had such an air of distinction, and because he was interested in art and literature; they did not understand these things and so thought them unmanly; and they disliked him because his capacity was greater than theirs. They disliked him because he was better bred than they.
They thought him superior; well, he was superior, but not in the sense they meant.
They forgave her because she was an ugly little thing.
That was what she called herself, but she wasn't that, or if she was it was with an ugliness that was most attractive.
She was like a little monkey, but a very sweet little monkey and very human.
She had a neat figure.
That was her best point.
That and her eyes.
They were very large, of a deep brown, liquid and shining; they were full of fun, but they could be tender on occasion with a charming sympathy.
She was dark, her frizzy hair was almost black, and her skin was swarthy; she had a small fleshy nose, with large nostrils, and much too big a mouth.
But she was alert and vivacious.
She could talk with a show of real interest to the ladies of the colony about their husbands and their servants and their children in England, and she could listen appreciatively to the men who told her stories that she had often heard before.
They thought her a jolly good sort.
They did not know what clever fun she made of them in private.
It never occurred to them that she thought them narrow, gross and pretentious.
They found no glamour in the East because they looked at it vulgarly with material eyes.
Romance lingered at their threshold and they drove it away like an importunate beggar.
She was aloof. She repeated to herself Landor's line:
'Nature I loved, and next to nature, art.'
She reflected on her conversation with Mrs Hannay, but on the whole it left her unconcerned.
She wondered whether she should say anything about it to Alban; it had always seemed a little odd to her that he should be so little aware of his unpopularity; but she was afraid that if she told him of it he would become self-conscious.
He never noticed the coldness of the men at the club.