"But I never had any flowers here," he observed, gazing at them in a puzzled manner.
Elizabeth looked at the vase and set it down. Then she turned towards her companion and shook her head.
"Oh, my dear Philip," she sighed, "you really don't know what makes that girl so uncouth?"
"You mean Martha? Of course I don't. You think that she … Rubbish!"
He stopped short in sudden confusion. Elizabeth passed her arm through his. She replaced the vase very carefully, looked once more around the room, and led him to the door.
"Never mind," she said. "It isn't anything serious, of course, but it's wonderful, Philip, what memories a really lonely woman will live on, what she will do to keep that little natural vein of sentiment alive in her, and how fiercely she will fight to conceal it. You can go on down and wait for me in the hall. I am going in to say good-by to Miss Martha Grimes. I think that this time I shall get on better with her."
CHAPTER V
Philip waited nearly a quarter of an hour for Elizabeth. When at last she returned, she was unusually silent. They drove off together in her automobile. She held his fingers under the rug.
"Philip dear," she said, "I think it is time that you and I were married."
He turned and looked at her in amazement. There was a smile upon her lips, but rather a plaintive one. He had a fancy, somehow, that there had been tears in her eyes lately.