"I'm never going to marry," she answered.
He nodded.
"I'm going on to Washington in the morning," he said.
"Oh——"
"I have to go. I've got to be in New York by the first, and meanwhile I want to stop off in Washington."
"Business!"
"No-o," he said as if reluctantly. "There's some one there I must see who was very kind to me when I was so—down and out."
This was invented. There was no one in Washington for him to see—but he was watching Jonquil narrowly, and he was sure that she winced a little, that her eyes closed and then opened wide again.
"But before I go I want to tell you the things that happened to me since I saw you, and, as maybe we won't meet again, I wonder if—if just this once you'd sit in my lap like you used to. I wouldn't ask except since there's no one else—yet—perhaps it doesn't matter."
She nodded, and in a moment was sitting in his lap as she had sat so often in that vanished spring. The feel of her head against his shoulder, of her familiar body, sent a shock of emotion over him. His arms holding her had a tendency to tighten around her, so he leaned back and began to talk thoughtfully into the air.