Constance delayed replying for a moment, then said with cold respectfulness:
"You will find Sir William and Lady Amys in the drawing-room."
"I shall find them there, shall I? And what if I don't wish to go into the drawing-room?"
Constance looked into the angry face. In the book she was carrying, a French volume arrived by post this morning, she had found things which troubled her mind and her temper; she was in no mood for submitting to harsh dictatorship. But those blood-shot eyes and shrivelled lips, the hollow temples and drawn cheeks which told of physical suffering, stilled her irritation.
"I will tell them at once, Lady Ogram."
Dymchurch and May Tomalin had strayed from the garden into the park. They were sitting on a bench which encircled a great old tree. For some minutes neither had spoken. Dymchurch held in his hand a last year's leaf, brown, crisp, but still perfect in shape; he smiled dreamily, and, as his eyes wandered to the girl's face, said in a soft undertone:
"How easily one loses oneself in idle thoughts! I was asking myself where this grew—on which branch, which twig; and it seemed strange to me that by no possibility could anyone discover it."
May had not a very high opinion of her companion's intelligence, but it struck her this morning he was duller than usual. She humoured him, replying with her philosophical air:
"No, indeed! Yet we try to find out how life began, and what the world means."
Dymchurch was pleased. He liked to find her capable of such a reflection. It encouraged the movements of vague tenderness which had begun to justify a purpose formed rather in the mind than in the heart.