“No, no. Really. I’m all right,” she insisted, with a little movement of the head, that was meant to be reassuring. “Sit down, and light a cigarette, and give me a true and faithful account of the day’s doings. Who was there?”
“I don’t know. You weren’t. That was the important thing. We missed you awfully. Your absence entirely spoiled the afternoon,” I declared.
She raised her eyebrows. “I can imagine how they must all have pined for me. Did they commission you to speak for them?”
“Well, I pined for you, at any rate,” I said. “I kept looking for you, expecting you. Every minute, up to the very end, I still hoped for you. If you’re not ill, or anything, why didn’t you come?”
“Vanity. I was having a plain day, I didn’t like to show myself.”
I looked at her with anxiety, narrowly. “I say,” I blurted out, “what’s the use of beating about the bush? I know there’s something wrong. I should have to be blind not to see it. If you’re not ill, then you’re unhappy about something. I can’t help it—if you don’t like my speaking of it, send me away. But I can’t sit here and talk small-talk, when I know that you’re unhappy.”
“If you know that I’m unhappy, you might sit here and talk small-talk, to cheer me up,” she suggested.
“You—you’ve been crying,” I exclaimed, all at once understanding an odd brightness in her eyes.
“Well, and even so? Hasn’t one a right to cry, if it amuses one?” she questioned.
“What have you been crying about?” questioned I.