‘I want to know all about everything,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell you anything you ask,’ she answered. ‘But you must promise to like it,’ she added, smiling.
‘Why? Why shouldn’t I like it?’ he asked quickly, his face changing. ‘You’re not—you’re not going to be married?’
‘Oh—don’t be silly. There. I’m ready. Shall we go down?’
‘I suppose you insist on walking down?’
‘We can go in the lift if you like,’ she said, pausing surprised, ‘but it’s only one floor.’
‘I want to carry you.’
‘Oh—don’t be silly,’ she said again, this time with a faint impatience. The evening wouldn’t be at all amusing if he were going to be silly, seriously silly. And if he began already might he not grow worse? George, she remembered, used to be quite different after dinner from what he was before dinner. Always kind, after dinner he became more than kind. But he was her husband. One bore it. She had no wish for more than kindness from anybody else. Besides, whatever one might pretend for a moment, one wasn’t twenty, and one naturally didn’t want to be ridiculous.
She walked out of the flat thoughtfully. Perhaps she had better begin nipping his effusiveness in the bud a little harder, whenever it cropped up. She had nipped, but evidently not hard enough. Perhaps the simplest way—and indeed all his buds would be then nipped for ever at once—would be to tell him at dinner about Virginia. If seeing her as he had now done in full daylight hadn’t removed his misconceptions, being told about Virginia certainly would. Only—she hadn’t wanted to yet; she had wanted for this one evening to enjoy the queer, sweet, forgotten feeling of being young again, of being supposed to be young; which really, if one felt as young as she quite often very nearly did, amounted to the same thing.
‘You’re not angry with me?’ he said, catching her up, having been delayed on the stairs by Mrs. Mitcham who had pursued him with his forgotten coat.