"You are coming?"
"Look here, Ciss, you are not so foolish as to misunderstand me. When I said that I distrusted your discretion, I meant, of course, that you might innocently do things which would make people talk about you. There is no harm in reminding you of the danger."
"Perhaps not; though it would be more like yourself to scorn people's talk."
"That is only possible if we chose to go back to our life of solitude. I'm afraid it wouldn't suit you very well now."
"No; I am far too eager to see my name in fashionable lists. Has not all my life pointed to that noble ambition?"
She regarded him with a smile from her distance, a smile that trembled a little about her lips, and in which her clear eyes had small part. Elgar, without replying, began to turn down the lamp.
"This is what has made you so absent and uneasy for the last week or two?" Cecily added.
The lamp was extinguished
"Yes, it is," answered Elgar's voice in the darkness. "I don't like the course things have been taking."
"Then you were quite right to speak plainly. Be at rest; you shall have no more anxiety."