"I don't know," she returned. "You have done more useful things than that."
"Not to my mind."
"Well, but to mine. There, when I have pulled the curtains and put the lamp just at your elbow, you could almost imagine yourself back in England, couldn't you? Imagine the street outside as a bit of London. There could hardly be more noise. The idea may refresh you. You look so tired."
He seated himself in the comfortable wicker chair by the table and looked about him with a faint smile of content.
"Yes," he said, "it is homely, isn't it? The red light, and the pretty little room, and you sitting there working. It might be a corner of the old country—or of Marut. Your study was just like this, I remember."
"Yes, I copied it. It made me feel less lonely. Only I flatter myself that it is tidier here than it used to be in the old days."
He laughed, and the laughter sent the light shining in his eyes.
"Rather! When I first joined I had the chemical craze on, do you remember? I thought I was going to discover some wonderful new gunpowder, and we used to experiment together in your room. The business came to an untimely end when I blew off part of the ceiling—"
"And some of my eyebrows!" she interposed merrily.
"Yes, of course. I don't know which disaster upset Mrs. Carmichael most, good soul. After that I forget what craze came about, but we always had a new one on the list, hadn't we?"