"You really cannot think me so selfish as to insist upon her risking her fragile health by an ocean voyage just for my pleasure."
"I suspected that you meant to go alone," she said dryly.
"But, my dear child," he answered with no change of manner, "I don't mean to go alone."
She changed color, but she did not pursue the subject. She took up from the table a little Japanese ivory carving, and began to examine it with close scrutiny.
"You do not ask whom I hope to take with me," Langdon said.
She looked at him firmly.
"I have no possible interest in knowing," she responded.
"You are far too modest, Louise. On the contrary you have the greatest. I had hoped—"
He half hesitated over the sentence, and she interrupted him by rising and moving to the open window.
"It is so nice to have the windows open again," she said. "I feel as if I were less alone when there is nothing between me and the world. That big fat policeman over there is a great friend of mine."