"This terrible war," she murmured, "makes it difficult to remember anything. You will have some tea, Mr. Cresswell? Let me introduce you to Professor David."
The poet bowed to his neighbour and glanced around the little circle, winding up with a nod to Lovejoy, who seemed hopelessly out of place. They were, for the most part, a very gloomy and serious little company.
"I interrupted an interesting conversation, I am sure," the poet declared genially. "May it not continue?"
There was a moment's rather awkward silence and Mrs. Abrahams sighed.
"Alas!" she said, "I am afraid there was nothing original about our conversation this afternoon. It was the war—always the war."
Cresswell balanced his plate upon his knee, sipped his tea and talked commonplace nonsense for a quarter of an hour. Then he got up to leave.
"Coming my way, Lovejoy?" he enquired.
The young actor hesitated for a moment and then acquiesced. Mrs. Abrahams bade them both farewell. She extended to neither of them any invitation to return.
"Rather a heavy sort of crowd for you, isn't it?" Cresswell asked, as they descended in the lift.
"Mrs. Abrahams was kind to me when I first came to London," Lovejoy remarked, a little vaguely. "I promised I'd look in there some day and I happened to be near this afternoon."