“I called on Miss Berber last evening,” Stefan announced casually at breakfast the next morning.
“Did you?” replied Mary, surprised, putting down her cup. “Well, did you have a nice time?”
“It was mildly amusing,” he said, opening the newspaper. The subject dropped.
II
Mary, who had lived all her life in a small town within sight of the open fields, was beginning to feel the confinement of city life. Even during her year in London she had joined other girls in weekend bicycling excursions out of town, or tubed to Golder's Green or Shepherd's Bush in search of country walks. Now that the late snows of March had cleared away, she began eagerly to watch for swelling buds in the Square, and was dismayed when Stefan told her that the spring, in this part of America, was barely perceptible before May.
“That's the first objection I've found to your country, Stefan,” she said.
He was scowling moodily out of the window. “The first? I see nothing but objections.”