Elgar heard it with indifference. He was silent for a minute or two; then, quitting his chair, asked:
"Had you much talk with her?"
"With Cecily? We were living together, you know."
"Yes, but had she much to tell you? Did she talk about how things were going with us—what I was doing, and so on?"
He was never still. Now he threw himself into another chair, and strummed with his fingers on the arm of it.
"She told me about your work."
"And showed that she took very little interest in it, no doubt?"
Miriam gazed at him.
"Why do you think that?"
"Oh, that's tolerably well understood between us." Again he rose, and paced with his hands in his pockets. "It was a misfortune that Clarence died. Now she has nothing to occupy herself with. She doesn't seem to have any idea of employing her time. It was bad enough when the child was living, but since then—"