“I am not among them. I shall certainly dress to show that I am staying here. And you go to town to-morrow?”
“Yes, till Saturday, when some other people are kind enough to come down here.”
“How kind of them; how remarkably kind!” he said. “It is most self-sacrificing of them. I shall picture them this time next week, those unfortunate guests of yours, boring themselves down here, while I stew in town.”
There was more than a hint conveyed here, and with the utmost good nature she took it.
“Ah, do come and bore yourself, too,” she said. “Come down on Sunday. I wish I could ask you to stay, but we are quite full.”
“My dear lady, it is too kind of you. I have warned you before that I am utterly incapable of refusing any invitation from you.”
“That is charming, then; I shall expect you. Look, we are going to have a little illumination to-night on the terrace. I think it will look rather pretty. Or will it be too like a railway station with green lights and red lights, and a large crowd having dinner in the refreshment-room, which is the loggia, and then rushing away in different directions? Basle railway station, you know, where everybody eats in a great hurry and then disperses to Germany and Switzerland and France. I rather adore railway stations; there is a sense of movement.”
“There is that very often on the Channel,” said he. “But your illuminations are charming. They altogether extinguish the rather sad light which comes at the beginning and end of every day.”
“I know. I dislike the twilight in the evening. It reminds one that there’s a day gone. It’s like the curtain coming down at the end of a play. But the morning twilight I love; that is the curtain going up on the first act. Something is going to happen, and you don’t know what. In the evening something has happened, and you do know what.”
“In this instance a perfectly charming day has happened,” said he.