This referred to the alarming possibility, and Tarrant caught at hope. Yes, she might be mistaken; they wouldn’t talk about it; he shook it away.
‘Let me fill my pipe again. Yes, you can do it for me. That reminds me of a story Harvey Munden tells. A man he knew, a doctor, got married, and there was nothing his wife wouldn’t do for him. As he sat with her one evening, smoking, a patient called him into the consulting-room. He had only just lighted a fresh pipe, and laid it down regretfully. ‘I’ll keep it in for you,’ said his wife. And she did so, with dainty and fearful puffs, at long intervals. But the doctor was detained, and when he came back—well, the poor wife had succumbed to her devotion. She never kept in his pipe again.
Nancy tried to laugh. She was in her own chair again, and sat resting her cheek upon her hand, gazing at the fire.
‘How is it, Lionel, that no one ever knocks at your door when I’m here.’
‘Oh, very simple. I sport the oak—as you know.’
‘But don’t you think some friend of yours might see a light in your window, and come up?’
‘If so, il respecte la consigne.’
‘No, no; I don’t like you when you begin to use French words. I think it reminds me of once when you did it a long time ago,—and I thought you—never mind.’
Tarrant laughed.
‘Weren’t they strange—those meetings of ours at Champion Hill? What did you think me? Arrogant? Insolent? That is my tendency with strangers, I admit.’