"I fancy," he remarked, smiling, "that my years exceed yours.
"As a matter of fact they don't," she answered, "but I was not thinking of years, I was thinking of disposition. You have set going the greatest charitable scheme of the generation, and yet you are so young, so very young."
He laughed a little uneasily. In some vague way he felt that he had displeased her.
"I never pretended," he said, "that I did not enjoy life, that I was not fond of its pleasures. It was only while my work was insecure that I made a recluse of myself. You, too," he said, "it is time that you slackened a little. Come, take an evening off and we will dine somewhere and go to the theatre." How delightful it sounded. She felt a warm rush of pleasure at the thought. They would want her badly at Stepney, but "This evening?" she asked.
"Yes. No, hang it, it can't be this evening. I'm dining with the
Carooms—nor to-morrow evening. Say Thursday evening, will you?"
Something seemed suddenly to chill her momentary gush of happiness.
"Well," she said, "I think not just yet. We have several fresh girls, you know—it is a bad time to be away. Perhaps you will ask me later on."
He laughed softly.
"What a funny girl you are, Mary. You'd really rather stew in that hot room, I believe, than go anywhere to enjoy yourself. Such women as you ought to be canonized. You are saints even in this life. What can be done for you in the next?"
Mary bit her lip hard, and she bent low over the tea-cups. In another moment she felt that her self-control must go. Fortunately he drifted away from the subject.