Breaking the long and awkward silence, he said:
"Have you quite recovered from your experience on Hope Island?"
"Yes—I'm all right now," she replied quickly.
"You're more comfortable, at any rate," he smiled, glancing around at the oriental rugs, books and costly objets d'art with which the luxuriously furnished room was littered. "I suppose you're glad to be home."
She shook her head, and a wistful smile came into her face as she answered:
"Sometimes I wish I were back there. Now that I've returned, it's the same social treadmill again—the same exhausting round of teas, receptions, dinners, and all the rest, hearing women talk nothing but dress and scandal and bridge until you begin to think there is nothing else in the world worth discussing. It's nauseating. When I think of those ideal days on the little island—the life of perfect peace under the cool trees by the silver sea—doing cheerfully each day's allotted task, helping you as best I could—when I think of how happy I was leading that lonely peaceful existence, I'm almost sorry we were rescued."
A glad smile broke over his face. His eyes flashed and his mouth trembled slightly as he eagerly bent forward.
"Really?" he said. "You were happier then?"
She flushed and then turned pale. He hardly heard the low answer that came from her lips:
"I don't know."