"Good morning," he said. "How are you?"
"Good morning," said Mona.
She ignored his offered hand, but she was surprised to hear herself answering unconventionally.
"I am bored," she said, "to the last limit of endurance."
He drew down his brows with a frown of sympathy.
"Are you?" he said. "What do you do for it?"
"I do believe he is going to recommend Easton's Syrup!" thought Mona.
"Ah, that's the trouble," she said. "I am not young enough to write a tragedy, so there is nothing for it but to grin and bear it."
"You ought to go out for a regular spin," he said kindly. "There's nothing like that for blowing away the cobwebs."
"I can't to-day, but to-morrow I am going for a twenty-mile walk along the coast"—"botanising," she was about to add, but she thought better of it.