Lady Conyers took up her knitting.
“Some men are like that, dear,” she remarked. “It is just temperamental. Perhaps you haven’t encouraged him to talk.”
“But I have,” Geraldine insisted. “I have asked him no end of questions, but before he has answered any of them properly, I find him trying to change the conversation.”
“Men don’t like talking about the war, you know,” Lady Conyers went on. “There was that nice Major Tyndale who was back from the Front the other day with a V. C. and goodness knows what. Not a word would he say about any one of the fights, and he is cheery enough in a general way, isn’t he, and fond of talking?”
“Even then,” Geraldine protested, “Hugh’s work is different. I can understand why he doesn’t like to talk a lot about the wounded and that sort of thing, but he must have had some interesting adventures.”
“I don’t think,” Lady Conyers said, “the very nicest men talk about their adventures.”
Geraldine made a little grimace.
“Hugh doesn’t talk about anything,” she complained. “He goes about looking as though he had the cares of the world upon his shoulders, and then he has the—well, the cheek, I call it, to lecture me about Captain Granet. He does talk about Captain Granet in the most absurd manner, you know, mother.”
“He may have his reasons,” Lady Conyers observed.
Geraldine turned her head and looked at her mother.