“I wondered what made you look peculiar at lunch-time,” Neville admitted. “Now you mention it, I see it on your brow. About as deep as this.”
He touched one of the deep-scored lines running down to the side of his own mouth.
Sylvia laughed.
“You alarm me, uncle. I must have a look at the ravages in a mirror before I venture out. Good-bye!”
She hurried out of the room. Neville looked at his watch.
“Time I was moving,” he said. “I think I’ll take Ernest’s advice and try the Maze for seclusion. It’s hardly likely that anyone will bother to go into it this afternoon; and I can’t stand this piano-playing of Arthur’s. It grows irritating, as you say. I’ll go now. But I must get my notes first.”
A thought seemed to strike Roger as the barrister opened the door.
“I think I’ll try the Maze myself this afternoon. I feel a bit sleepy; and it’s quiet in there. I shan’t disturb you. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll take Helen’s Bower myself. I’m used to a chair there; it suits me. You can go to Narcissus’s Pool instead. There’s nothing to pick and choose between them, since they’re both in the Maze.”
“Very good,” the barrister agreed. “It’s all the same to me, so long as no one interrupts me.”
He nodded abruptly and left the room.