“Yes,” she said unenthusiastically.
“Do you find the evenings rather long after you get in from your work? You very seldom join us in the drawing-room, I notice, after dinner.”
“Sometimes I go and sew in Miss Nettleship’s room, and talk to her,” said Lydia.
“Sometimes, no doubt. But are there not evenings when you retire to your own apartment very early?”
Lydia reflected that foreigners no doubt held views unshared by the conventional British mind, as to the propriety of expressing a manifest curiosity in the affairs of other people.
“Sometimes I have writing to do,” she said shyly.
The admission was not altogether unpremeditated. Lydia knew that the Greek was an insatiable reader, mostly of French novels, and it had occurred to her some time since that he might not unpossibly be of use in advising her. Besides, she owned to herself quite frankly, that his interest in her was not likely to be diminished by the discovery of her literary ambitions.
“I came to London partly so as to be able to write,” she told him. “I have wanted to write books ever since I was a child.”
“Ever since you were a child!” he repeated with a hint of friendly derision. “That is indeed a long while. And what form does this writing of yours take? No doubt you write poetry—all about love, and springtime, and death?”
Lydia felt herself colouring with annoyance as she replied with decision: