Perhaps incurable romanticism was not attributable to Miss Marchrose only.
XIII
When Lady Rossiter indulged, in the presence of her husband, in a space of silent reverie, it was always her intention to meet with interruption and enquiry that should lead to a mutually beneficial discussion upon the subject of her thoughts. In spite of the many disappointments inflicted upon her by Sir Julian in this respect, it was also her custom to return good for evil by never allowing him more than ten consecutive minutes of reflectiveness without some sympathetic reminder that he was not alone.
Accordingly, when he had smoked two cigarettes after dinner in complete silence, gazing the while, with obvious preoccupation, into the fire, Lady Rossiter lifted up her voice and spoke.
"I saw the first little, wee, wonderful sign of spring this afternoon. A patch of snowdrops, just outside the gates."
"Did you?"
"Such brave little white sentinels! I always love the French name—perce-neige," said Lady Rossiter, who, like many another cultured soul, generally saw more beauty and expressiveness in the vocabulary of languages other than her own.
"I am afraid there was no neige for them to percer on this occasion," observed Sir Julian, with very languid interest in the horticultural vagaries of these harbingers of spring.
"There very well might be, by to-morrow. I thought it bitterly cold. Were you out this afternoon?"
"I was. I heard Cooper being extremely eloquent and long-winded in the distance, and I thought that everything pointed to my taking a long walk."