Anne stood by her host and watched the gay scene silently. "You ought to be skating," he said presently.
She shook her head. "Not yet. I like watching. It makes me think of when
I was a girl."
"Not so very long ago, surely!" he said, with a smile.
"Seven years," she answered.
"My dear Lady Carfax!"
"Yes, seven years," she repeated, and though she also smiled there was a note of unspeakable dreariness in her voice. "I was married on my eighteenth birthday."
"My dear Lady Carfax," he said again. And with that silence fell once more between them, but in some magic fashion his sympathy imparted itself to her. She could feel it as one feels sudden sunshine on a cold day. It warmed her to the heart.
She moved at length, turning towards him, and at once he spoke, as if she had thereby set him at liberty to do so.
"Shall I tell you what I do when I find myself very badly up against anything?" he said.
"Yes, tell me." Instinctively she drew nearer to him. There was that about this man that attracted her irresistibly.