"How nice of you to come so promptly!" she exclaimed. "You're sure it didn't inconvenience you?"
"Not in the least," he replied. "I was only talking to Richard Lane."
"You seem to have taken a great fancy to that young man all at once," she remarked.
Hunterleys was sitting upon the arm of an easy-chair. He had picked up one of Violet's slippers and was balancing it in his hand.
"Oh, I don't know. He is rather refreshing after some of these people. He still has enthusiasms, and his love affair is quite a poem. Aren't you up rather early this morning?"
"I couldn't sleep," she sighed. "I think it has come to me in the night that I am sick of this place. I wondered—"
She hesitated. He bent the slipper slowly back, waiting for her to proceed.
"The Draconmeyers don't want to go," she went on. "They are here for another month, at least. Linda would miss me terribly, I suppose, but I have really given her a lot of my time. I have spent several hours with her every day since we arrived, and I don't know what it is—perhaps my bad luck, for one thing—but I have suddenly taken a dislike to the place. I wondered—"
She had picked up one of the roses from a vase close at hand, and was twirling it between her fingers. For some reason or other she seemed ill at ease. Hunterleys watched her silently. She was very pale, but since his coming a slight tinge of pink colour had stolen into her cheeks. She had received him in a very fascinating garment of blue silk, which was really only a dressing-gown. It seemed to him a long time since he had seen her in so intimate a fashion.
"I wondered," she concluded at last, almost abruptly, "whether you would care to take me away."