‘I get my own breakfast—the only meal I have at home. Look, here’s the kitchen, queer old place. And here’s the dining-room. Cupboards everywhere, you see; we boast of our cupboards. The green paint is de rigueur; duck’s egg colour; I’ve got to like it. That door leads into the bedroom. Well, after breakfast, about eleven o’clock that’s to say, I light up—look at my pipe-rack—and read newspapers. Then, if it’s fine, I walk about the streets, and see what new follies men are perpetrating. And then—’
He told of his favourite restaurants, of his unfashionable club, of a few houses where, at long intervals, he called or dined, of the Hodiernals, of a dozen other small matters.
‘What a life,’ sighed the listener, ‘compared with mine!’
‘We’ll remedy that, some day.’
‘When?’ she asked absently.
‘Wait just a little.—You don’t wish to tell your father?’
‘I daren’t tell him. I doubt whether I shall ever dare to tell him face to face.’
‘Don’t think about it. Leave it to me.’
‘I must have letters from you—but how? Perhaps, if you could promise always to send them for the first post—I generally go to the letter-box, and I could do so always—whilst father is ill.’
This was agreed upon. Nancy, whilst they were talking, took her hat from the table; at the same moment, Tarrant’s hand moved towards it. Their eyes met, and the hand that would have checked her was drawn back. Quickly, secretly, she drew the ring from her finger, hid it somewhere, and took her gloves.