'Indeed? Odd choice for her to have made, don't you think?—And so your Odyssey is over? We shall have some chance of seeing you again.'
'But your own Odyssey is perpetually going on. Are you ever in town except for a few weeks of the season?'
'Oh, I go about very little now; I'm settling down.—You never met my sister, I think? She has a house at Wimbledon with a good-sized garden—sort of little park, in fact,—and I have persuaded her to let me build myself a bungalow among the trees.'
'Splendid idea!'
'Not bad, I think. One is free there; a member of the family whenever one likes; domesticated; all that's respectable; and only a few steps away, the bachelor snuggery, with all that's——. No, no! I was not going to complete the antithesis, though by your smiling you seem to say so.'
'The suggestion was irresistible,' said Sibyl, with the composure, the air of security, which always covered her excursions on to slippery ground.
'When the weather is good, I ask a few of my friends to come and sit there in the shade. They may or may not be my sister's friends also; that doesn't matter. I have a separate entrance from the road.—But I wish you knew Mrs. Fenimore. She lived a year or two at Stuttgart, for her children to learn German. Her husband's in India. She tried it, but couldn't stand the climate.'
'And you really live in the bungalow?' inquired Mrs. Carnaby, disregarding this information about Redgrave's sister.
'Yes, it's my headquarters in England. Let me send you a card, will you, when I have my next afternoon? It might amuse you, and I assure you it is perfectly respectable.'
'How could I doubt it, if you invite me?'