"I suppose it was because we all lived so much abroad. And I don't think Philip talks about his friends very much…."
Lady Garnett interrupted the tête-à-tête conversation at this point, and when her little brougham had rolled away, and a few other late guests had left Eve alone with her husband, she sat for a few minutes in the deserted drawing-room, among a wilderness of empty chairs, meditating, with her chin resting on one hand, and her eyes absently contemplating the scattered petals of a copper-coloured rose, which had fallen from some dress or bouquet upon one of the Oriental rugs which partly covered the parquet floor.
"Dick," she said presently to her husband, who was leaning against the rails of the veranda, lazily enjoying a final cigarette, "did it ever strike you that Philip Rainham was in love with anybody?"
Lightmark turned and gazed at her through the open window wonderingly, almost suspiciously, and then broke into a laugh.
"Or that anyone was in love with him?" she pursued gravely.
"I don't think I ever noticed it," he answered, with another display of mirth. "What have you discovered now, little matchmaker?"
"Not much. I was only thinking…. What a pity Charles wasn't here to-night!"
"Oh, you little enigma! Is it that dear Charles who is to be pitied, or who? We, for instance?"
But Eve assumed a superior air, and Lightmark, who hated riddles, dismissed the subject and the end of his cigarette simultaneously.