Wareham laughed.
“Evidently I haven’t your energy.” He went on to ask whether with these sentiments his own free will had brought Colonel Martyn abroad?
The other turned a melancholy eye upon him.
“Good heavens, that you should put such a question! My wife insists upon going through an annual period of discomfort. I don’t much care where it is. This year she and Anne Dalrymple took a craze for Norway, and here we are.” It was as if his last words meant “Poor devils!”
Wareham had no thought of letting fly his next words. They escaped him.
“Has Miss Dalrymple travelled with you before?”
Colonel Martyn again looked at him.
“Never. She is my wife’s last friend. A former acquaintance of yours?”
Wareham hastened to repudiate.
“I have never spoken to her until Mrs Martyn introduced me.” Some unaccountable impulse made him add—“But I have often heard of her.”