He crossed the room and returned with a newspaper.
“I saw your music in the hall as I came in,” he remarked. “Are you singing to-night?”
The question was entirely in his ordinary tone. It brought her back to the world of every-day things as nothing else could have done.
“Yes; isn't it luck?” she told him. “Three in one week. I only heard an hour ago.”
“A city dinner?” he inquired.
“Something of the sort,” she replied. “I am to be at the Whitehall Rooms at ten o'clock. If you are tired, Leonard, please let me go alone. I really do not mind. I can get a 'bus to the door, there and back again.”
“I am not tired,” he declared. “To tell you the truth, I scarcely know what it is to be tired. I shall go with you, of course.”
She looked at him with a momentary admiration of his powerful frame, his strong, forceful face.
“It seems too bad,” she remarked, “after a long day's work to drag you out again.”
He smiled.