'How I love Hampton Court!' she said. 'It looks so quiet and peaceful. I think I should like to live there. Think of the evenings in that wonderful old place, with its panelled walls, and the echo of feet that are no longer there, down the cold, stone corridors—'
Bruce gave a slight laugh.
'Echo of feet that are no longer there? But how could that be? Dear me, how poetical you are, Madame Frabelle!'
'I mean the imaginary echo.'
'Imaginary—ah, yes. You're very imaginative, aren't you, Madame Frabelle? Well, I don't know whether it's imagination or not, but, do you know, I fancy that queer feeling of mine seems to be coming on again.'
'What queer feeling?'
'I told you about it, and you were very sympathetic the other night, before dinner. A kind of emptiness in the feet, and a hollowness in the head, the feeling almost, but not quite, of faintness.'
'It's nearly two o'clock. Perhaps you're hungry,' said Madame Frabelle.
Bruce thought this was not fair, putting all the hunger on to him, as if she had never felt anything so prosaic. Madame Frabelle always behaved as if she were superior to the weaknesses of hunger or sleep, and denied ever suffering from either.
'It may be. I had no breakfast,' said Bruce untruthfully, as though it were necessary to apologise for requiring food to sustain life.