"I'm afraid," she said, as she folded her napkin, "that you've found me very poor company."
"I'm nothing to boast of myself," he replied.
"I hope they are not as miserable as we are," she added, as they rose to leave the table. "I haven't been able to eat a thing."
Scarsdale did not reply; he had a gloomy suspicion that his wife was making a very good meal somewhere. Not that he doubted her love; but he did not believe her devotion included loss of appetite.
"Don't you think they are miserable?" she queried, uneasy at his silence.
"Not so miserable as we are," he said. "They are both Americans, you see, and Americans don't take things seriously as a rule."
"What do you suppose they are doing?" was her next question.
"Seated swinging their feet over the edge of Salisbury platform, finishing my five-pound box of American candy," he said.
She tried to be amused, and even forced a little laugh; but it was a dismal failure, and, realising it, she at once excused herself and retired to her room for the night, leaving Scarsdale to pass the evening as best he could. He approved of her circumspection, but it was beastly dull, and, as he sat smoking in the winter garden which the hotel boasted, he felt that he should soon become insufferably bored.
He presently, therefore, overcame his natural reserve sufficiently to respond to the advances of the only person in the room who seemed inclined to be sociable. The stranger was a florid, shaggy-bearded man of a distinctively American type, a person Scarsdale would naturally have avoided under ordinary circumstances; but to-night he felt the need of human society, no matter whose, and in a few moments they had drifted into conversation. At first the subjects under discussion were harmless enough, relating mainly to Winchester and neighbouring points of interest, concerning which Scarsdale was forced to confess himself ignorant, as it was his first visit to the place. Before long, however, they began to touch on more dangerous ground, and he saw that, even with a casual acquaintance of this sort, he must be guarded if he was to remain consistent in his role of brother to the deserted bride.