"Liverpool?" I repeated, as blankly as if geography hadn't been my favorite book at school—to eat apples behind.
"And Hudson suggested, since you showed last night that you were keen on getting the news of the hour, that you'd likely succeed in a new line in England. We've been surfeited on Westminster Abbey and the lakes, so we want news! Coal strikes and suffragettes—and other curses!"
"News?"
"Instead of mooning around Hampstead Heath listening to the newest scandal about George Romney and his lady friend, stay strictly in the twentieth century and get in line with the militants. Describe how they address crowds from cart-tails."
"I see," I said slowly.
But in my attempts to see I think I must have passed my left hand across my forehead. At all events, he caught sight of its ringless state.
"Grace!" he exclaimed, catching my fingers roughly and scrutinizing the little pallid circle left by the ring's long contact—sometimes the healthiest, sometimes the deadliest pallor that female flesh is heir to! "Does this mean that you've broken off with Guilford Blake?"
"Yes."
His face grew grave.
"Then, child, I beg your pardon for talking so glibly about your going away!—I didn't know."