Très rum! Oh, she felt quite faint. Oh, why should she love him so much just because he said a thing like that. Très rum! That was Robert all over. Nobody else but Robert could ever say such a thing. To be so wonderful, so brilliant, so learned, and then to say in that queer, boyish voice. . . . She could have wept.
“You know you’re very absurd, sometimes,” said she.
“I am,” he answered. And they walked on.
But she was tired. She had had enough. She did not want to walk any more.
“Leave me here and go for a little constitutional, won’t you? I’ll be in one of these long chairs. What a good thing you’ve got my cape; you won’t have to go upstairs for a rug. Thank you, Robert, I shall look at that delicious heliotrope. . . . You won’t be gone long?”
“No—no. You don’t mind being left?”
“Silly! I want you to go. I can’t expect you to drag after your invalid wife every minute. . . . How long will you be?”
He took out his watch. “It’s just after half-past four. I’ll be back at a quarter past five.”
“Back at a quarter past five,” she repeated, and she lay still in the long chair and folded her hands.
He turned away. Suddenly he was back again. “Look here, would you like my watch?” And he dangled it before her.