“We have reason to be patriotic,” she said, “or rather, we had,” she added, with a curious note of sadness in her tone. “But, come, I do not desire to talk about my country. I admitted you here to be an entertaining companion, and you have made me speak already of the subject which is to me the most mournful in the world. I do not wish to talk any more about France. Will you please think of another subject?”
“Mr. Sabin is not with you,” he remarked.
“He intended to come. Something important kept him at the last moment. He will follow me, perhaps, by a later train to-day, if not to-morrow.”
“It is certainly a coincidence,” he said, “that you should be going to Cromer. My home is quite near there.”
“And you are going there now?” she asked.
“I am delighted to say that I am.”
“You did not mention it the other evening,” she remarked. “You talked as though you had no intention at all of leaving London.”
“Neither had I at that time,” he said. “I had a letter from home this morning which decided me.”
She smiled softly.
“Well, it is strange,” she said. “On the whole, it is perhaps fortunate that you did not contemplate this journey when we had supper together the other night.”