But Mona does not hear this last addition; she is moving a chair a little to one side, and the faint noise it makes drowns the sound of his voice. This perhaps is as well.
She turns up one of the lamps, whilst Rodney still continues his contemplation of the wall before him. Conversation languishes, then dies. Mona, raising her hand to her lips, suppresses valiantly a yawn.
"I hope you are enjoying yourself," she says, presently, hardly knowing what else to say.
"Enjoying myself?—No, I never do that," says Rodney, with unexpected frankness.
"You can hardly mean that?" says Mona, with some surprise.
"I do. Just now," looking at her, "I am perhaps as near enjoyment as I can be. But I have not danced before to-night. Nor should I have danced at all had you been engaged. I have forgotten what it is to be light-hearted."
"But surely there must be moments when——"
"I never have such moments," interrupts he moodily.
"Dear me! what a terribly unpleasant young man!" thinks Mona, at her wits' end to know what to say next. Tapping her fingers in a perplexed fashion on the table nearest her, she wonders when he will cease his exhaustive survey of the walls and give her an opportunity of leaving the room.
"But this is very sad for you, isn't it?" she says, feeling herself in duty bound to say something.