"Of course—I had forgotten," he laughed. "How did you spend your time?"
"I passed the first three weeks with Aunt Eleanor, as I told you I should. We were a big, merry party, and everybody made a great fuss of your little sister." Again that wistful smile. "They all spoiled and petted me shamefully."
"Ah, that was good for you."
"I am not so sure about that," she returned thoughtfully. "I am certainly not used to the sort of thing, and I really found it restful and refreshing to go on to old Lady Glynn, who had me to herself."
"So that's your idea of a holiday—taking care of paralytic, deaf old people whom everybody else shuns like the plague." He shook his finger at her. "And you call it restful and refreshing."
"Service is the greatest of all happiness," she answered gently. "Even as it is, I'm sadly afraid I'm a sham and a fraud. I'm not really a worker—in the same sense as others I know. They have no fashionable friends with big houses in the country."
She brewed the tea and gave him his cup.
"Do people inquire much about me?" he asked, as the uncomfortable thought recurred to him.
"Certainly not of me," she returned. "You neglect them, you refuse their invitations, they never hear a word from you, and naturally they suppose you wish to be quit of them all. And so, no doubt, they feel it the proper thing not to appear to wish to discuss you with your sister." There was a pause. Both seemed lost in thought for the moment. "And so you, poor Walter, have had no holiday at all!"
"Ah, well," he sighed. "I try to content myself with the thought that I'm saving it up. One of these days I daresay I shall go off to Rome or Venice, and recuperate from several points of view. I daresay a bit of luck will be coming my way presently, and I'm keen on getting back to Italy again. I've often planned it out. A month or so at Paris, a couple of months in the South of France, three at Rome, and three at Venice—with a look-in at Naples some time, of course."