Until he had come to Hartling he had always been fresh and eager in the morning, but the Kenyons were taciturn and inclined to be irritable at that time, and by degrees their example had influenced him. He presumed that it was their example, but he was not sure whether or not he could attribute to the same source the sense of dissatisfaction with himself that commonly haunted him now when he first woke; dissatisfaction and a strange feeling of staleness and of disinclination to begin his easy, amusing day.
He addressed her as he might have addressed a casual acquaintance in a hotel.
"Don't often see you down here in the morning," he remarked vapidly, as he rang the bell.
"I've been given a holiday to-day," she said, without looking up. "And I was to tell you that you needn't go up this morning. My grandfather says he's feeling a little tired."
"He had rather an exciting day," Arthur agreed; investigated the cold dishes on the sideboard, and then crossed the room and sat down opposite her.
Eleanor went on quietly with her breakfast. She seemed prepared, he thought, to sit there in silence for the rest of the meal, while he on his part could think of no reasonably intelligent conversation. After the interval provided by the entrance of the butler, however, an opening presented itself to him.
"What are you going to do with your holiday?" he asked. "It'll be rather too wet for tennis, won't it?"
"I'm going for a long walk into Sussex," she said.
His first thought was that he would now find no opportunity for a quiet talk alone with her that day.
"All alone?" he asked.