"I must go and finish my work," she declared. "Let me have the den to myself for at least an hour, please, Louise. It will take me longer than that to muddle through your books."
Louise nodded and rose to her feet.
"We will leave you entirely undisturbed," she promised. "I hope, when you have finished, you will have something more agreeable to say than you had before lunch. Shall we have our coffee up-stairs?" she suggested, turning to John.
"I should like to very much," he replied. "I want to talk to you alone."
She led the way up-stairs into the cool, white drawing-room, with its flower-perfumed atmosphere and its delicate, shadowy air of repose. She curled herself up in a corner of the divan and gave him his coffee. Then she leaned back and looked at him.
"So you have really come to London, Mr. Countryman!"
"I have followed you," he answered. "I think you knew that I would. I tried not to," he went on, after a moment's pause. "I fought against it as hard as I could; but in the end I had to give in."
"That was very sensible of you," she declared knocking the ash from her cigarette. "There is no use wearing oneself out fighting a hopeless battle. You know now that there are things in life which are not to be found in your passionless corner among the hills. You have realized that you owe a duty to yourself."
"That was not what brought me," he answered bluntly. "I came for you."
Louise's capacity for fencing seemed suddenly enfeebled. A frontal attack of such directness was irresistible.