'How do you know?'
'Because you give me such a sense of rest.'
'Thank you.' He caught himself up. 'Or perhaps I should thank my grey hair.'
'Grey hair doesn't bring the thing I mean. I've sometimes wished it did. But our friendship is an uncommonly peaceful one, don't you think?'
'Yes; I think it is,' he said. 'All the same, you know there's a touch of magic in it.' But, as though to condone the confession, 'You haven't told me why you were ruffled.'
'It's nothing. I dare say I was a little tired.'
They had come out into the park. 'I hurried so to catch the train. My sister's new coachman is stupid about finding short cuts in London, and we got blocked by a procession—a horrible sort of demonstration, you know.'
'Oh, the unemployed.'
'Yes. And I got so tired of leaning out of the window and shouting directions that I left the maid and the luggage to come later. I got out of the brougham and ran through a slum, or I'd have lost my train. I nearly lost it anyway, because I saw a queer picture that made me stop.' She stopped again at the mere memory of it.
'In a second-hand shop?'