“Looking for me?” she echoed, vaguely.
“Yes. Thought you’d gone back to your digs. I was coming to fetch you. What I want to say is——” (That was one of his mannerisms of speech. In his letters he had constantly written, “What I want to say is——”) “we’re having a little supper at the Forest Hotel after the concert’s over. Just ourselves—the performers, I mean. Of course you’ll join us.... I didn’t think you’d be running off so early, or I should have mentioned it before....”
She was still staring monotonously at that ivory solitaire of his.
“Well—er—you see ... er....”
“Of course if you’re engaged for somewhere else——”
“No, I’m not engaged for anywhere else.” She paused, as if weighing things in the balance. Then a change came over her. It was as if she were suddenly electrified. Her eyes lifted and were found shining with peculiar brilliance. Her body, too, which had been tiredly swaying, jerked all at once into challenging rigidity. “All right,” she said, and even in her voice there was a new note, “I’ll come.”
“Good.” He looked a little queerly at this transformation of her. “Then we’ll go now.”
“But it’s not half-past nine yet. The concert won’t be over till after ten.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go to the hotel to fix up arrangements. You’d better come with me.”
“Right.” The promptitude of her reply had something in it of riotous abandon.