"Oh, yes, I am distressed; dreadfully distressed."
Again she was silent, but still she lingered.
"I am going to walk home again," she said suddenly. "Would you care to walk a little way with me?"
At that moment I wanted my own company and had a certain shrinking from hers; so the voice of Mr. Hobhouse bleated something about having caught a slight chill.
"Please come a little way," she said. "I want to speak to you particularly."
There was a note of appeal in her voice which would have taken a stouter man than Thomas Hobhouse to resist. Besides, he felt exceedingly curious. Her whole manner during the interview in fact roused a very strong sensation of curiosity.
He got his hat and his coat (Mr. Hobhouse always wore a topcoat) and they crunched their way down the knobbly drive and passed out into the road, neither saying a word. And then Mr. Hobhouse got the most rousing eye-opener of his career, or of Roger Merton's either. She turned to him and said quietly,
"I hope you are taking care of your own life, Mr. Merton."