"Thor, would you mind if I went away for a little while?"
He looked at her across the luncheon-table, but her eyes were downcast. Though she endeavored to maintain the non-committal attitude she had taken up at breakfast, she couldn't meet his gaze.
"If you went away!" he echoed, blankly. "Why should you do that?"
"I've been to see—" She found a difficulty in pronouncing the name—"I've been to see Rosie. She's rather—upset."
Under the swift lifting of her lids he betrayed his self-consciousness. "I suppose so." He kept to the most laconic form of speech in order to leave no opening to her penetration.
"And I thought if I could take her away—"
"Where should you go?"
"Oh, anywhere. That wouldn't matter. To New York, perhaps. That might interest her. But anywhere, so long as—"
He got out his consent while making an excuse for rising from the table. The conversation was too difficult to sustain. It was without looking at him that she said, as he was leaving the room:
"Then I'll go and ask her at once. I dare say she won't come—but I can try. It will give me an excuse for going back. I feel worried at having left her at all."