“Did I say that?” He knitted his brow.
“Certainly you did.”
“It must have been aphasia. I meant contentment,” he explained.
“Devoured by contentment?”
“Why not, as well as by curiosity?”
“The phrase is novel,” she mused.
“It’s the occupation of my life to seek for novel phrases,” he reminded her. “I’m what somebody or other has called a literary man.”
“And you enjoy what somebody or other has called beating about the bush?”
“Hugely—with such a fellow-beater,” he responded.
“You drive me to extremities.” She shook her head. “I see there’s nothing for it but to plunge in médias res. You must know, then, that I have been asked to call upon you by a friend—by my friend Miss Johannah Rothe—I beg your pardon; I never can remember that she’s changed her name—my friend Miss Johannah Silver—but Silver née Rothe—of Silver Towers, in the County of Sussex.”