She promised that she would. She always felt curiously at home with the Greysons.
They were passing the long sweep of Chester Terrace. “I like this neighbourhood with its early Victorian atmosphere,” she said. “It always makes me feel quiet and good. I don’t know why.”
“I like the houses, too,” he said. “There’s a character about them. You don’t often find such fine drawing-rooms in London.”
“Don’t forget your promise,” he reminded her, when they parted. “I shall tell Mary she may write to you.”
She met Carleton by chance a day or two later, as she was entering the office. “I want to see you,” he said; and took her up with him into his room.
“We must stir the people up about this food business,” he said, plunging at once into his subject. “Phillips is quite right. It overshadows everything. We must make the country self-supporting. It can be done and must. If a war were to be sprung upon us we could be starved out in a month. Our navy, in face of these new submarines, is no longer able to secure us. France is working day and night upon them. It may be a bogey, or it may not. If it isn’t, she would have us at her mercy; and it’s too big a risk to run. You live in the same house with him, don’t you? Do you often see him?”
“Not often,” she answered.
He was reading a letter. “You were dining there on Friday night, weren’t you?” he asked her, without looking up.
Joan flushed. What did he mean by cross-examining her in this way? She was not at all used to impertinence from the opposite sex.
“Your information is quite correct,” she answered.