“One might judge from your cheerful aspect, that the House would prorogue before lunch,” she smiled at him.
“No such luck! Although, as a matter of fact, I believe the end’s in sight. The Budget should be down this week. There won’t be much more after that.”
“This week?” Azalea bent diligently over her desk, “Then it won’t be long before you start West, again.”
“Marjorie and the kids will probably go home. But I have no intention of accompanying them.”
“Well, what will you do?” asked Azalea, in surprise.
“I shall stay around Ottawa and become a golf addict. I played eighteen holes yesterday afternoon.”
Above the mad singing of her heart, she caught a strange note in his voice, a note she was at a loss to diagnose. “I shall stay in Ottawa . . .” he said calmly, but in a peculiar way.
She dared not trust herself to look at him. Eyes are responsible for more betrayals than are the lips. She wondered, nervously, whether he was looking at her. “I shall stay in Ottawa . . .” Surely, he had not meant . . . No, no! The thing was impossible! Never, by so much as a fleeting glance, had Raymond Dilling expressed anything more than friendliness towards her, and at that, it was the friendliness that man offers man. Had he not deplored the fact that she was born a woman? Hope that was as dear as it was unfounded, died under one smart blow of Reason and Azalea called herself a weak fool. She was ashamed.
“You are singularly uninterested in the affairs pertaining to your Minister,” Dilling teased. “Why don’t you ask me some intelligent questions?”
He looked at her with a sudden softening in his glance that was almost warm enough to be affectionate.