She laughed nervously. "Is it so bad as that?" she said, and began to speak of other matters.
She was intending to send a picture to the Academy, and felt quite hopeful about it. She described it to him, and he made appropriate replies; but though he watched her intently all the time he was hardly conscious of what she was saying. He tried to pull himself together.
"What are we to do this evening? A theatre?"
"I don't think so. I'm tired of theatres. I'm tired of everything. We will talk for a little in the lounge, and then I will take my train back again and go through the farce of trying to go to sleep."
"You, too, have not been sleeping well then? Of course, you won't go back in the train. I shall drive you back."
"It is frightfully good of you, but I don't really deserve so much kindness to-night. I have the feeling all the time that I am behaving badly, and talking like an idiot."
"Come on into the lounge. We will both talk like idiots."
They found a secluded corner, and a waiter brought them coffee. Elton watched the man's back as he went away. Then he turned to Rosamond.
"Now then," he said, "about our conversation on the telephone."
She paused before replying, breathing quickly, and then she spoke very rapidly and in a low voice.