"It has its compensations," she agreed, "apart, of course, from the hunting."
He felt the desire to speak of more vital things. What did hunting or chaperons more or less matter to the Lady Janes of the world! Already he knew enough of her to be sure that she would have her way in any crisis that might arise. "How much of the year," he asked, "do you actually spend here?"
"As much as I can."
"You are content to be here alone, even in the winter?"
"More contented than I should be anywhere else," she assured him.
"There is always plenty to do, useful work, too—things that count."
"London?"
"Bores me terribly," she confessed.
"Foreign travel?"
She nodded more tolerantly.
"I have done a little of it," she said. "I should love to do more, but travel as travel is such an unsatisfying thing. If a place attracts you, you want to imbibe it. Travel leaves you no time to do anything but sniff. Life is so short. One must concentrate or one achieves nothing. I know what the general idea of a stay-at-home is," she went on. "Many of my friends consider me narrow. Perhaps I am. Anyhow, I prefer to lead a complete and, I believe, useful life here, to looking back in later years upon that hotchpotch of lurid sensations, tangled impressions and restless moments that most of them call life."